Under the Country Sky | Page 8

long as he confines himself to being company for
your father. But if he takes to being company for you--lookout!"
"Absurd! He's years older than I, and he said he would be working very
hard. I shall see nothing of him except at the table. Heavens! don't
grudge us anything that promises to relieve the monotony of our lives
even a little bit."
Stuart whistled. "Monotony, eh? In spite of all my visits? All right. But
I'd be just as well pleased if he wore skirts. And mind you--your Uncle
Jimps is coming over evenings just as often as and a little oftener than
if you didn't have this literary light burning on your hearthstone. See?"

He went away, his thick fair hair, uncapped, shining in the morning
sunlight, his arm waving a friendly farewell back at the window, where
a white cloth flapped in reply.
"Dear old boy!" thought the young woman affectionately; "what should
I do without him?"
That afternoon, just before the supper hour, the boarder's trunk arrived.
It was borne upstairs by the village baggageman, complaining bitterly
of its weight. It was an aristocratic-looking trunk, and it bore labels
which indicated that it was a traveled trunk. Shortly afterward the
boarder himself appeared and was allowed to betake himself at once to
his room, from which he emerged at the call of the bell, and came
promptly down. Meeting Mr. Warne limping slowly through the hall,
he offered his arm, and in the dining-room placed his host in his chair
with the gentle deference so welcome from a younger man to an older.
Georgiana, as she served one of the undeniably simple but toothsome
meals for the cooking of which she was equipped by many years'
apprenticeship, noted how bright grew Father Davy's face as the supper
progressed, and how delightfully the newcomer talked--and
listened--for if he was an interesting talker he proved to be a still more
accomplished listener. When the supper was over Mr. Jefferson
lingered a few minutes by the fire, then went up to his room, explaining
that he must unpack his books and make ready for an early attack in the
morning upon his work.
In her own room, that night, Georgiana lay awake for a long time. Just
before she went to sleep she addressed herself sternly:
"My child, I shouldn't wonder if you've jumped out of the frying pan of
monotony into the fire of unrest. It certainly means trouble for you
when you can't get a perfect stranger's face out of your mind for an
hour. Now, there's just one thing about it: you've always despised girls
who let themselves leap into liking any man and are so upset by it that
everybody sees it. This one is undoubtedly either married or engaged to
be, and even if he's the freest old bachelor alive you are to behave as if
he were the tightest tied. You are to go straight ahead with your work

and to remember every minute that you are a poor minister's daughter
with only a college training for an asset. He's very clearly a man of
importance somewhere; he couldn't look like that and be anything else.
He will never think twice of you. Whatever attention he gives you will
be purely because he is a gentleman and he can't ignore his host's
daughter--nonsense, his landlady--I might as well face it. He's a boarder
and I'm his landlady. Gentlemen don't take much interest in landladies.
So now, Georgiana Warne, landlady--keeper of a boarding-house, be
sensible and go to sleep."
But before she went to sleep her mind, in spite of her, had imaged for
her again the interesting, clever-looking face of the stranger under the
roof, with his clear, straightforward glance that seemed to see so much,
his smile which disclosed splendid teeth, his strongly moulded chin.
And she had owned, frankly, driven to the confession just to see if it
wouldn't relieve her:
"It's just such a face as I've seen and liked--in crowds sometimes--but I
never knew the owner of one. It's such a face as a woman would
remember to her grave, if its owner had just belonged to her one--hour!
Oh, dear God, I've prayed you to let something happen--anything! And
now I'm--afraid!"
But, in the morning, when pulses beat strongly and courage is bright,
Georgiana had another tone to take with herself. She faced her image in
the glass, which looked straight back at her with unflinching dark eyes.
"I'm ashamed of you! To moon and croon like that! Now, brace up,
Miss Warne, and be yourself. You've never lacked spirit; you're not
going to lack it now. You're going to be strong and sane about this
thing. You're going to be the sort of girl whose mind no man can