Quaint Courtships | Page 6

on."
"I think," said Mrs. Cyrus, "that that woman has some motive in bringing her mother back here; and right across the street, too!"
"What motive?" said Cyrus.
But Augusta waited for conjugal privacy to explain herself: "Cyrus, I worry so, because I'm sure that woman thinks she can catch your father again.--Oh, just listen to that harmonicon downstairs! It sets my teeth on edge!"
Then Cyrus, the silent, servile first mate, broke out: "Gussie, you're a fool!"
And Augusta cried all night, and showed herself at the breakfast-table lantern-jawed and sunken-eyed; and her father-in-law judged it wise to sprinkle his cigar ashes behind the stable.
The day that Mrs. North arrived in Old Chester, Mrs. Cyrus commanded the situation; she saw the daughter get out of the stage, and hurry into the house for a chair so that the mother might descend more easily. She also saw a little, white-haired old lady take that opportunity to leap nimbly, and quite unaided, from the swinging step.
"Now, mother!" expostulated Mary North, chair in hand, and breathless, "you might have broken your limb! Here, take my arm."
Meekly, after her moment of freedom, the little lady put her hand on that gaunt arm, and tripped up the path and into the house, where, alas! Augusta Price lost sight of them. Yet even she, with all her disapproval of strong-minded ladies, must have admired the tenderness of the man-o'-war's man. Miss North put her mother into a big chair, and hurried to bring a dish of curds.
"I'm not hungry," protested Mrs. North.
"Never mind. It will do you good."
With a sigh the little old lady ate the curds, looking about her with curious eyes. "Why, we're right across the street from the old Price house!" she said.
"Did you know them, mother?" demanded Miss North.
"Dear me, yes," said Mrs. North, twinkling; "why, I'd forgotten all about it, but the eldest boy--Now, what was his name? Al--something. Alfred,--Albert; no, Alfred. He was a beau of mine."
"Mother! I don't think it's refined to use such a word."
"Well, he wanted me to elope with him," Mrs. North said, gayly; "if that isn't being a beau, I don't know what is. I haven't thought of it for years."
"If you've finished your curds you must lie down," said Miss North.
"Oh, I'll just look about--"
"No; you are tired. You must lie down."
"Who is that stout old gentleman going into the Price house?" Mrs. North said, lingering at the window.
"Oh, that's your Alfred Price," her daughter answered; and added that she hoped her mother would be pleased with the house. "We have boarded so long, I think you'll enjoy a home of your own."
"Indeed I shall!" cried Mrs. North, her eyes snapping with delight. "Mary, I'll wash the breakfast dishes, as my mother used to do!"
"Oh no," Mary North protested; "it would tire you. I mean to take every care from your mind."
"But," Mrs. North pleaded, "you have so much to do; and--"
"Never mind about me," said the daughter, earnestly; "you are my first consideration."
"I know it, my dear," said Mrs. North, meekly. And when Old Chester came to make its call, one of the first things she said was that her Mary was such a good daughter. Miss North, her anxious face red with determination, bore out the assertion by constantly interrupting the conversation to bring a footstool, or shut a window, or put a shawl over her mother's knees. "My mother's limb troubles her," she explained to visitors (in point of modesty, Mary North did not leave her mother a leg to stand on); then she added, breathlessly, with her tremulous smile, that she wished they would please not talk too much. "Conversation tires her," she explained. At which the little, pretty old lady opened and closed her hands, and protested that she was not tired at all. But the callers departed. As the door closed behind them, Mrs. North was ready to cry.
"Now, Mary, really!" she began.
"Mother, I don't care! I don't like to say things like that, though I'm sure I always try to say them politely. But to save you I would say anything!"
"But I enjoy seeing people, and--"
"It is bad for you to be tired," Mary said, her thin face quivering still with the effort she had made; "and they sha'n't tire you while I am here to protect you." And her protection never flagged. When Captain Price called, she asked him to please converse in a low tone, as noise was bad for her mother. "He had been here a good while before I came in," she defended herself to Mrs. North, afterwards; "and I'm sure I spoke politely."
The fact was, the day the Captain came, Miss North was out. Her mother had seen him pounding up the street, and hurrying to the door, called out, gayly, in her little, old, piping