The Courtship of Susan Bell | Page 5

would listen to the lengthened eloquence of Mr.
Phineas Beckard, the Baptist minister. Now Mr. Phineas Beckard was a
bachelor.
Susan was not so good a girl in the kitchen or about the house as was
her sister; but she was bright in the parlour, and if that motherly heart
could have been made to give out its inmost secret-- which however, it
could not have been made to give out in any way painful to dear
Hetta--perhaps it might have been found that Susan was loved with the
closest love. She was taller than her sister, and lighter; her eyes were
blue as were her mother's; her hair was brighter than Hetta's, but not
always so singularly neat. She had a dimple on her chin, whereas Hetta
had none; dimples on her cheeks too, when she smiled; and, oh, such a
mouth! There; my allowance of pages permits no more.
One piercing cold winter's day there came knocking at the widow's

door--a young man. Winter days, when the ice of January is refrozen by
the wind of February, are very cold at Saratoga Springs. In these days
there was not often much to disturb the serenity of Mrs. Bell's house;
but on the day in question there came knocking at the door--a young
man.
Mrs. Bell kept an old domestic, who had lived with them in those
happy Albany days. Her name was Kate O'Brien, but though
picturesque in name she was hardly so in person. She was a thick- set,
noisy, good-natured old Irishwoman, who had joined her lot to that of
Mrs. Bell when the latter first began housekeeping, and knowing when
she was well off; had remained in the same place from that day forth.
She had known Hetta as a baby, and, so to say, had seen Susan's birth.
"And what might you be wanting, sir?" said Kate O'Brien, apparently
not quite pleased as she opened the door and let in all the cold air.
"I wish to see Mrs. Bell. Is not this Mrs. Bell's house?" said the young
man, shaking the snow from out of the breast of his coat.
He did see Mrs. Bell, and we will now tell who he was, and why he had
come, and how it came to pass that his carpet-bag was brought down to
the widow's house and one of the front bedrooms was prepared for him,
and that he drank tea that night in the widow's parlour.
His name was Aaron Dunn, and by profession he was an engineer.
What peculiar misfortune in those days of frost and snow had befallen
the line of rails which runs from Schenectady to Lake Champlain, I
never quite understood. Banks and bridges had in some way come to
grief, and on Aaron Dunn's shoulders was thrown the burden of seeing
that they were duly repaired. Saratoga Springs was the centre of these
mishaps, and therefore at Saratoga Springs it was necessary that he
should take up his temporary abode.
Now there was at that time in New York city a Mr. Bell, great in
railway matters--an uncle of the once thriving but now departed Albany
lawyer. He was a rich man, but he liked his riches himself; or at any
rate had not found himself called upon to share them with the widow
and daughters of his nephew. But when it chanced to come to pass that
he had a hand in despatching Aaron Dunn to Saratoga, he took the
young man aside and recommended him to lodge with the widow.
"There," said he, "show her my card." So much the rich uncle thought
he might vouchsafe to do for the nephew's widow.

Mrs. Bell and both her daughters were in the parlour when Aaron Dunn
was shown in, snow and all. He told his story in a rough, shaky voice,
for his teeth chattered; and he gave the card, almost wishing that he had
gone to the empty big hotel, for the widow's welcome was not at first
quite warm.
The widow listened to him as he gave his message, and then she took
the card and looked at it. Hetta, who was sitting on the side of the
fireplace facing the door, went on demurely with her work. Susan gave
one glance round--her back was to the stranger--and then another; and
then she moved her chair a little nearer to the wall, so as to give the
young man room to come to the fire, if he would. He did not come, but
his eyes glanced upon Susan Bell; and he thought that the old man in
New York was right, and that the big hotel would be cold and dull. It
was a pretty face to look on that cold evening as she turned it up from