Quaint Courtships | Page 5

the romance of that thwarted elopement.
"Do you suppose she knows that story about old Alfred Price and her
mother?" said Old Chester; and it looked sidewise at Miss North with
polite curiosity. This was not altogether because of her mother's
romantic past, but because of her own manners and clothes. With
painful exactness, Miss North endeavored to follow the fashion; but she
looked as if articles of clothing had been thrown at her and some had
stuck. As to her manners, Old Chester was divided. Mrs. Barkley 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.