Quaint Courtships | Page 5

said she hadn't any. Dr. Lavendar said she was shy. But, as Mrs. Drayton said, that was just like Dr. Lavendar, always making excuses for wrong-doing!--"Which," said Mrs. Drayton, "is a strange thing for a minister to do. For my part, I cannot understand impoliteness in a Christian female. But we must not judge," Mrs. Drayton ended, with what Willy King called her "holy look." Without wishing to "judge," it may be said that, in the matter of manners, Miss Mary North, palpitatingly anxious to be polite, told the truth. She said things that other people only thought. When Mrs. Willy King remarked that, though she did not pretend to be a good housekeeper, she had the backs of her pictures dusted every other day, Miss North, her chin trembling with shyness, said, with a panting smile:
"That's not good for housekeeping; it's foolish waste of time." Which was very rude, of course--though Old Chester was not as displeased as you might have supposed.
While Miss North, timorous and truthful (and determined to be polite), was putting the house in order before sending for her mother, Old Chester invited her to tea, and asked her many questions about Letty and the late Mr. North. But nobody asked whether she knew that her opposite neighbor, Captain Price, might have been her father;--at least that was the way Miss Ellen's girls expressed it. Captain Price himself did not enlighten the daughter he did not have; but he went rolling across the street, and pulling off his big shabby felt hat, stood at the foot of the steps, and roared out: "Morning! Anything I can do for you?" Miss North, indoors, hanging window-curtains, her mouth full of tacks, shook her head. Then she removed the tacks and came to the front door.
"Do you smoke, sir?"
Captain Price removed his pipe from his mouth and looked at it. "Why! I believe I do, sometimes," he said.
"I inquired," said Miss North, smiling tremulously, her hands gripped hard together, "because, if you do, I will ask you to desist when passing our windows."
Captain Price was so dumbfounded that for a moment words failed him. Then he said, meekly, "Does your mother object to tobacco smoke, ma'am?"
"It is injurious to all ladies' throats," said Miss North, her voice quivering and determined.
"Does your mother resemble you, madam?" said Captain Price, slowly.
"Oh no! my mother is pretty. She has my eyes, but that's all."
"I didn't mean in looks," said the old man; "she did not look in the least like you; not in the least! I mean in her views?"
"Her views? I don't think my mother has any particular views," Miss North answered, hesitatingly; "I spare her all thought," she ended, and her thin face bloomed suddenly with love.
Old Chester rocked with the Captain's report of his call; and Mrs. Cyrus told her husband that she only wished this lady would stop his father's smoking.
"Just look at his ashes," said Gussie; "I put saucers round everywhere to catch 'em, but he shakes 'em off anywhere--right on the carpet! And if you say anything, he just says, 'Oh, they'll keep the moths away!' I worry so for fear he'll set the house on fire."
Mrs. Cyrus was so moved by Miss North's active mission-work that the very next day she wandered across the street to call. "I hope I'm not interrupting you," she began, "but I thought I'd just--"
"Yes; you are," said Miss North; "but never mind; stay, if you want to." She tried to smile, but she looked at the duster which she had put down upon Mrs. Cyrus's entrance.
Gussie wavered as to whether to take offence, but decided not to;--at least not until she could make the remark which was buzzing in her small mind. It seemed strange, she said, that Mrs. North should come, not only to Old Chester, but right across the street from Captain Price!
"Why?" said Mary North, briefly.
"_Why_?" said Mrs. Cyrus, with faint animation. "Why, don't you know about your mother and my father-in-law?"
"Your father-in-law?--my mother?"
"Why, you know," said Mrs. Cyrus, with her light cackle, "your mother was a little romantic when she was young. No doubt she has conquered it now. But she tried to elope with my father-in-law."
"What!"
"Oh, bygones should be bygones," Mrs. Cyrus said, soothingly; "forgive and forget, you know. If there's anything I can do to assist you, ma'am, I'll send my husband over;" and then she lounged away, leaving poor Mary North silent with indignation. But that night at tea Gussie said that she thought strong-minded ladies were very unladylike; "they say she's strong-minded," she added, languidly.
"Lady!" said the Captain. "She's a man-o'-war's man in petticoats."
Gussie giggled.
"She's as thin as a lath," the Captain declared; "if it hadn't been for her face, I wouldn't have known whether she was coming bow or stern