Medoline Selwyns Work | Page 2

at me very intently said:
"Are you a foreigner?"
"Oh, no; English," I said, blushing furiously.
"Why don't you speak then, when you want anything? That's what we're here for."
I bowed my head quite proudly and said, "Will you please, then, answer my question?"
"We won't be there for an hour or more. Are you not the young lady Mrs. Flaxman is expecting?"
"I am Mr. Winthrop's ward. I do not know any Mrs. Flaxman."
"Oh, it's all the same. She lives with him; is a cousin, or something connected with him. He is away now; left a month ago for the Pacific coast."
He was sitting now quite comfortably in the next seat.
"You needn't have any more anxiety about the stopping places," he continued, very cordially; "I will look after you, and see that you get safely home, if there's no one there to meet you. Most likely they expected you by the morning's Express." Then he inquired about my luggage, examining my checks and keeping up a running stream of conversation which I seemed compelled to answer. After the rigid exclusion of my school life, where we were taught to regard all sorts of men with a measure of wholesome dread, I scarce knew whether to be proud of my courage in being able to sit there, with such outward calmness, or ashamed of my boldness. If I could only have consulted one of the teachers just for a moment it would have been such a relief; but presently the train stopped, when he left my side, his seat to be immediately occupied by an elderly woman with a huge covered basket. After considerable difficulty she got herself and basket bestowed to her satisfaction just before the cars got in motion. She moved uneasily on the seat, looking around on all sides a trifle nervously, and then in an awed whisper said to me, "Don't the cars go all to smash sometimes?"
"Not many times," I tried to say reassuringly.
"I wan't never in 'em afore, and wouldn't be now, only my son Dan'el's wife's took oncommon bad, and he thinks I can cure her."
She remained quiet a while, and then somewhat reassured began to grow curious about her traveling companions.
"Have you cum fur?" she asked.
I explained that I had come a good many miles.
"All alone?"
"Only from New York."
"Going fur?"
"To Cavendish."
"Did you say Cavendish?"
"Yes."
"Be you a furriner?"
"No, I am English;" I felt my color rising as I answered.
"Well, you speak sort o' queer, but my old man was English, too, a Norfolk man, and blest if I could understand quarter he said for ever so long after we got keeping company. I used to say yes to everything I didn't understand when we was alone, for fear he might be popping the question; but laws, I knew well enough when he did ask."
She fell into an apparently pleasant reverie, but soon returned to the actualities of life.
"You're not married, surely."
I answered in the negative with fewest possible words.
"Got a young man, though, I'll warrant; such a likely girl."
"I do not understand what you mean," I answered with considerable dignity, glad to let her know that her own English was not perfect.
"You must have been riz in a queer place not to know what likely is. Why, it's good-looking; and anybody knows you're that. But I suppose you didn't have much eddication, they mostly don't in England; my man didn't know even his letters; but I have pretty good book larnin' and so we got on all right," she continued, with a retrospective look on her not unkindly face.
"Who might your folks be in Cavendish?" she asked, after a few moments of welcome silence.
"I have no relatives there," I answered, I am afraid, rather ungraciously.
"Going as governess or nurse girl to some of the aristocracy there? You don't look as if you ever did much housework, though."
"I am going to Mr. Winthrop's."
"Deu tell! Why, I lived with his mother myself, when I was a widder first."
Then she relapsed into another eloquent pause of silence, while possibly in her dim way she was reflecting how history repeats itself. But coming back to reality again, and scanning me more closely than ever, she asked, "Are you going there to work?"
My patience was getting exhausted, and it is possible there was a trace of petulance in my voice as I said, "No, I am Mr. Winthrop's ward."
"Deu tell! What is that?"
"He is my guardian."
"Why, he is a young man for that. I thought they got elderly men."
"My father held the same relation to him."
She was some time taking in the idea, but she said at last, "Oh, I see."
I took a book from my satchel and began reading; but she did not long permit me to enjoy it; her next remark, however, riveted my attention.
"I wonder if your name isn't Selwyn."
"Yes."
"Deary