On the Church Steps | Page 9

aside her chair, "won't you take care of Mr. Munro for a little while? I have a letter to write that I want him to take to New York."
Aunt Maria would be happy to entertain me, or rather to have me entertain her. If I would read to her, now, would I be so kind, while she washed up her breakfast cups?
How people can do two things at once I am sure I cannot understand; and while the maid brought in the large wooden bowl, the steam of whose household incense rose high in the air, I watched impatient for the signal to begin. When the tea-cups were all collected, and Aunt Sloman held one by the handle daintily over the "boiling flood," "Now," she said with a serene inclination of her head, "if you please."
And off I started at a foot-pace through the magazine that had been put into my hands. Whether it was anything about the "Skelligs," or "Miss Sedgwick's Letters," or "Stanley-Livingstone," I have not the remotest idea. I was fascinated by the gentle dip of each tea-cup, and watched from the corner of my eye the process of polishing each glittering spoon on a comfortable crash towel.
Then my thoughts darted off to Bessie. Was she indeed writing to her old trustee? Judge Hubbard was a friend of my father's, and would approve of me, I thought, if he did not agree at once to the hurried marriage and ocean journey.
"What an unconscionable time it takes her! Don't you think so, Mrs. Sloman?" I said at last, after I had gone through three several papers on subjects unknown.
I suppose it was scarcely a courteous speech. But Mrs. Sloman smiled a white-lipped smile of sympathy, and said, "Yes: I will go and send her to you."
"Oh, don't hurry her," I said falsely, hoping, however, that she would.
Did I say before that Bessie was tall? Though so slight that you always wanted to speak of her with some endearing diminutive, she looked taller than ever that morning; and as she stood before me, coming up to the fireplace where I was standing, her eyes looked nearly level into mine. I did not understand their veiled expression, and before I had time to study it she dropped them and said hastily, "Young man, I am pining for a walk."
"In the rain?"
"Pshaw! This is nothing, after all, but a Scotch mist. See, I am dressed for it;" and she threw a tartan cloak over her shoulder--a blue-and-green tartan that I had never seen before.
"The very thing for shipboard," I whispered as I looked at her admiringly.
Her face was flushed enough now, but she made no answer save to stoop down and pat the silly little terrier that had come trotting into the room with her.
"Fidget shall go--yes, he shall go walking;" and Fidget made a gray ball of himself in his joy at the permission.
Up the hill again we walked, with the little Skye terrier cantering in advance or madly chasing the chickens across the road.
"Did you finish your letter satisfactorily?" I asked, for I was fretting with impatience to know its contents.
"Yes. I will give it to you when you leave to-night."
"Shall we say next Saturday, Bessie?" said I, resolving to plunge at once into the sea of our late argument.
"For what? For you to come again? Don't you always come on Saturday?"
"Yes, but this time I mean to carry you away."
A dead pause, which I improved by drawing her hand under my arm and imprisoning her little gray glove with my other hand. As she did not speak, I went on fatuously: "You don't need any preparation of gowns and shawls; you can buy your trousseau in London, if need be; and we'll settle on the ship, coming over, how and where we are to live in New York."
"You think, then, that I am all ready to be married?"
"I think that my darling is superior to the nonsense of other girls--that she will be herself always, and doesn't need any masquerade of wedding finery."
"You think, then," coldly and drawing her hand away, "that I am different from other girls?" and the scarlet deepened on her cheek. "You think I say and do things other girls would not?"
"My darling, what nonsense! You say and do things that other girls cannot, nor could if they tried a thousand years."
"Thanks for the compliment! It has at least the merit of dubiousness. Now, Charlie, if you mention Europe once in this walk I shall be seriously offended. Do let us have a little peace and a quiet talk."
"Why, what on earth can we talk about until this is settled? I can't go back to New York, and engage our passage, and go to see Judge Hubbard--I suppose you were writing to him this