Winter Evening Tales, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr [i love reading books TXT] 📗

here."

"What for no? The house is her ain. She is Mistress Sharp, and that is the professor with her. He is a great gun in the Glasgow University."

"They are married, then?"

"Ay, they are married. What are you saying at all? They were married a month syne, and they are as happy as robins in spring, I'm thinking. I'll drink their health, sir, if you'll gie me the bit o' siller."

Gavin gave the silver and turned away dazed and sick at heart. His business in Scotland was over. The quiet Lothian country sickened him; he turned his face to London, and very soon went back to New York. He had lost Jean, and he had lost Jean's fortune; and there were no words to express his chagrin and disappointment. His sister felt the first weight of it. He blamed her entirely. She had lied to him about Jean's beauty. He believed he would have liked the photo but for Mary. And all for Annie Riley! He hated Annie Riley! He was resolved never to marry her, and he let the girl feel his dislike in no equivocal manner.

For a time Annie was tearful and conciliating. Then she wrote him a touching letter, and asked him to tell her frankly if he had ceased to love her, and was resolved to break their marriage off. And Gavin did tell her, with almost brutal frankness, that he no longer loved her, and that he had firmly made up his mind not to marry her. He said something about his heart being in Scotland, but that was only a bit of sentiment that he thought gave a better air to his unfaithfulness.

Annie did not answer his letter, but Messrs. Howe & Hummel did, and Gavin soon found himself the centre of a breach of promise trial, with damages laid at fifty thousand dollars. All his fine poetical love letters were in the newspapers; he was ashamed to look men and women in the face; he suffered a constant pillory for weeks; through his vanity, his self-consciousness, his egotism he was perpetually wounded. But pretty Annie Riley was the object of public pity and interest, and she really seemed to enjoy her notoriety. The verdict was righteously enough in her favor. The jury gave her ten thousand dollars, and all expenses, and Gavin Burns was a ruined man. His eleven years savings only amounted to nine thousand dollars, and for the balance he was compelled to sell his furniture and give notes payable out of his next year's salary. He wept like a child as he signed these miserable vouchers for his folly, and for some days was completely prostrated by the evil he had called unto himself. Then the necessities of his position compelled him to go to work again, though it was with a completely broken spirit.

"I'm getting on to forty," he said to his sister, "and I am beginning the world over again! One woman has given me a disappointment that I will carry to the grave; and another woman is laughing at me, for she has got all my saved siller, and more too; forbye, she is like to marry Bob Severs and share it with him. Then I have them weary notes to meet beyond all. There never was a man so badly used as I have been!"

No one pitied him much. Whatever his acquaintances said to his face he knew right well their private opinion was that he had received just what he deserved.



AN ONLY OFFER.

"Aunt Phoebe, were you ever pretty?"

"When I was sixteen I was considered so. I was very like you then, Julia. I am forty-three now, remember."

"Did you ever have an offer--an offer of marriage, I mean, aunt?"

"No. Well, that is not true; I did have one offer."

"And you refused it?"

"No."

"Then he died, or went away?"

"No."

"Or deserted you?"

"No."

"Then you deceived him, I suppose?"

"I did not."

"What ever happened, then? Was he poor, or crippled or something dreadful"

"He was rich and handsome."

"Suppose you tell me about him."

"I never talk about him to any one."

"Did it happen at the old place?"

"Yes, Julia. I never left Ryelands until I was thirty. This happened when I was sixteen."

"Was he a farmer's son in the neighborhood?"

"He was a fine city gentleman."

"Oh, aunt, how interesting! Put down your embroidery and tell me about it; you cannot see to work longer."

Perhaps after so many years of silence a sudden longing for sympathy and confidence seized the elder lady, for she let her work fall from her hands, and smiling sadly, said:

"Twenty-seven years ago I was standing one afternoon by the gate at Ryelands. All the work had been finished early, and my mother and two elder sisters had gone to the village to see a friend. I had watched them a little way down the hillside, and was turning to go into the house, when I saw a stranger on horseback coming up the road. He stopped and spoke to mother, and this aroused my curiosity; so I lingered at the gate. He stopped when he reached it, fastened his horse, and asked, 'Is Mr. Wakefield in?'

"I said, 'father was in the barn, and I could fetch him,' which I immediately did.

"He was a dark, unpleasant-looking man, and had a masterful way with him, even to father, that I disliked; but after a short, business-like talk, apparently satisfactory to both, he went away without entering the house. Father put his hands in his pockets and watched him out of sight; then, looking at me, he said, 'Put the spare rooms in order, Phoebe.'

"'They are in order, father; but is that man to occupy them?'

"'Yes, he and his patient, a young gentleman of fine family, who is in bad health.'

"'Do you know the young gentleman, father?'

"'I know it is young Alfred Compton--that is enough for me.'

"'And the dark man who has just left? I don't like his looks, father.'

"'Nobody wants thee to like his looks. He is Mr. Alfred's physician--a Dr. Orman, of Boston. Neither of them are any of thy business, so ask no more questions;' and with that he went back to the barn.

"Mother was not at all astonished. She said there had been letters on the subject already, and that she had been rather expecting the company. 'But,' she added, 'they will pay well, and as Melissa is to be married at Christmas, ready money will be very needful.'

"About dark a carriage arrived. It contained two gentlemen and several large trunks. I had been watching for it behind the lilac trees and I saw that our afternoon visitor was now accompanied by a slight, very fair-man, dressed with extreme care in the very highest fashion. I saw also that he was handsome, and I was quite sure he must be rich, or no doctor would wait upon him so subserviently.

"This doctor I had disliked at first sight, and I soon began to imagine that I had good cause to hate him. His conduct to his patient I believed to be tyrannical and unkind. Some days he insisted that Mr. Compton was too ill to go out, though the poor gentleman begged for a walk; and again, mother said, he would take from him all his books, though he pleaded urgently for them.

"One afternoon the postman brought Dr. Orman a letter, which seemed to be important, for he asked father to drive him to the next town, and requested mother to see that Mr. Compton did not leave the house. I suppose it was not a right thing to do, but this handsome sick stranger, so hardly used, and so surrounded with mystery, had roused in me a sincere sympathy for his loneliness and suffering, and I walked through that part of the garden into which his windows looked. We had been politely requested to avoid it, 'because the sight of strangers increased Mr. Compton's nervous condition.' I did not believe this, and I determined to try the experiment.

"He was leaning out of the window, and a sadder face I never saw. I smiled and courtesied, and he immediately leaped the low sill, and came toward me. I stooped and began to tie up some fallen carnations; he stooped and helped me, saying all the while I know not what, only that it seemed to me the most beautiful language I ever heard. Then we walked up and down the long peach walk until I heard the rattle of father's wagon.

"After this we became quietly, almost secretly, as far as Dr. Orman was concerned, very great friends. Mother so thoroughly pitied Alfred, that she not only pretended oblivion of our friendship, but even promoted it in many ways; and in the course of time Dr. Orman began to recognize its value. I was requested to walk past Mr. Compton's windows and say 'Good morning' or offer him a flower or some ripe peaches, and finally to accompany the gentlemen in their short rambles in the neighborhood.

"I need not tell you how all this restricted intercourse ended. We were soon deeply in love with each other, and love ever finds out the way to make himself understood. We had many a five minutes' meeting no one knew of, and when these were impossible, a rose bush near his window hid for me the tenderest little love-letters. In fact, Julia, I found him irresistible; he was so handsome and gentle, and though he must have been thirty-five years old, yet, to my thinking, he looked handsomer than any younger man could have done.

"As the weeks passed on, the doctor seemed to have more confidence in us, or else his patient was more completely under control. They had much fewer quarrels, and Alfred and I walked in the garden, and even a little way up the hill without opposition or remark. I do not know how I received the idea, but I certainly did believe that Dr. Orman was keeping Alfred sick for some purpose of his own, and I determined to take the first opportunity of arousing Alfred's suspicions. So one evening, when we were walking alone, I asked him if he did not wish to see his relatives.

"He trembled violently, and seemed in the greatest distress, and only by the tenderest words could I soothe him, as, half sobbing, he declared that they were his bitterest enemies, and that Dr. Orman was the only friend he had in the world. Any further efforts I made to get at the secret of his life were equally fruitless, and only threw him into paroxysms of distress. During the month of August he was very ill, or at least Dr. Orman said so. I scarcely saw him, there were no letters in the rose bush, and frequently the disputes between the two men rose to a pitch which father seriously disliked.

"One hot day in September everyone was in the fields or orchard; only the doctor and Alfred and I were in the house. Early in the afternoon a boy came from the village with a letter to Dr. Orman, and he seemed very much perplexed, and at a loss how to act. At length he said, 'Miss Phoebe, I must go to the village for a couple of hours; I think Mr. Alfred will sleep until my return, but if not, will you try and amuse him?'

"I promised gladly, and Dr. Orman