her mistress's message; but David instantly retreated to walk up and down the street, keeping his eye on Mrs. Barkley's house, so that he could time his return by the arrival of Mr. Spangler.
"He'll come at the right hour, I presume," he said to himself. Just then he saw Mrs. Smily stepping delicately down the street, her head on one side, and a soft, unchanging smile on her lips. As they met she minced a little in her step, and said:
"Dear me! I'm afraid I've made a mistake. I'm looking for Mrs. Barkley's residence."
"Mrs. Barkley resides here," said Mr. David, elegantly.
She looked up into his sad, dark eyes with a flurried air. "Dear me," she said, "I fear I am late."
"Oh, not late," said poor David. "Perhaps we might walk up and down for a minute longer?"
Mrs. Smily, astonished but flattered, tossed her head, and said, Well, she didn't know about that! But, all the same, she turned, and they walked as far as the post-office.
"I'm afraid you are very attentive to the ladies," Mrs. Smily said, coquettishly, when David had introduced himself; and David, who had never heard a flirtatious word (unless from Maria), felt a sudden thrill and a desire to reply in kind. But from lack of experience he could think of nothing but the truth. He had been too early, he said, and had come out to wait for Mr. Spangler – "and you, ma'am," he added, in a polite after-thought. But his hurried emphasis made Mrs. Smily simper more than ever. She shook her finger at him and said:
"Come, come, sir!" And David's head swam.
At that moment Mr. Spangler, buttoned to his chin in a black waistcoat, came solemnly along, and, with his protection, David felt he could face Mrs. Barkley.
But, indeed, she met her three guests with condescension and kindness. "They are all fools in their different ways," she said to herself, "but one must be kind to them." So she made Mrs. Smily sit down in the most comfortable chair, and pushed a footstool at her. Then she told Mr. Spangler, good-naturedly, that she supposed he found Old Chester very old-fashioned. "Don't you be trying any candles on us," she threatened him, in a jocular bass. As for David, she paid no attention to him except to remark that she supposed time didn't count with him. But her bushy eyebrows twitched in a kindly smile when she said it. Then she began to talk about Dr. Lavendar's health. "It is a great trial to have him away," she said. "Dear me! I don't know what we will do when the Lord takes him. I wish he might live forever. Clergymen are a poor lot nowadays."
"Why, I heard," said Mrs. Smily, "that he didn't give entire satisfaction."
"What!" cried Mrs. Barkley. "Who has been talking nonsense to you? Some of the new people, I'll be bound."
Mrs. Smily, very much frightened, murmured that no doubt she was mistaken. Wild horses would not have drawn from her that she had heard Annie Shields that was, say that Dr. Lavendar had deliberately advised some one she knew to be bad; and that he had refused to help a very worthy man to study for the ministry; and that the Ferrises said he ought to be tried for heresy (or something) because he married Oscar King to their runaway niece; and that he would not give a child back to its repentant (and perfectly respectable) mother – "And a mother's claim is the holiest thing on earth," Mrs. Smily said – and that he had encouraged Miss Lydia Sampson in positively wicked extravagance. After hearing these things, Mrs. Smily had her opinion of Dr. Lavendar; but that was no reason why she should let Mrs. Barkley snap her head off. So she only murmured that no doubt she had made a mistake.
"I think you have," said Mrs. Barkley, dryly; and rose and marshalled her company in to supper. "She's a perfect fool," she told herself, "but I hope the Lord will give me grace to hold my tongue." Perhaps the Lord gave her too much grace, for, for the rest of the evening, she hardly spoke to Mrs. Smily; she even conversed with David rather than look in her direction.
For the most part the conversation was a polite exchange of views upon harmless topics between Mrs. Barkley and Mr. Spangler, during which Mrs. Smily cheered up and murmured small ejaculations to David Baily. She told him that she was scared nearly to death of the stuffed animals at Miss Harriet's house.
"They make me just scream!" she said.
David protectingly assured her that they were harmless.
"But they are so dreadful!" Mrs. Smily said. "Isn't it strange that my cousin likes to – to do that to animals? It isn't quite ladylike, to my mind."
Mr. Baily thought to himself how ladylike it was in Mrs. Smily to object to taxidermy. He noticed, too, that she ate almost nothing, which also seemed very refined. It occurred to him that such a delicate creature ought not to go home alone; the lane up to Miss Harriet's house was dark with overhanging trees, and, furthermore, half-way up the hill it passed the burial-ground. In a burst of fancy David saw himself near the low wall of the cemetery, protecting Mrs. Smily, who was shivering in her ladylike way at the old head-stones over in the grass. He began (in his own mind) a reassuring conversation: "There are no such things as spectres, ma'am. I assure you there is no occasion for fear." And at these manly words she would press closer to his side. (And this outside the burial-ground – oh, Maria, Maria!)
But this flight of imagination was not realized, for later Emily announced that Miss Harriet's Augustine had come for Mrs. Smily.
"Did she bring a lantern?" demanded Mrs. Barkley. "That lane is too dark except for young folks."
Augustine had a lantern, and was waiting with it at the front door for her charge; so there was no reason for Mr. David to offer his protection. He and Mr. Spangler went away together, and David twisted his head around several times to watch the spark of light jolting up the hill towards the burial-ground and the Stuffed-Animal House. When the two men said good-night, Mr. Spangler had a glimpse of a quickly opened door and heard an eager voice – "Come in, dear brother. Did you have a delightful evening?"
"How pleasing to be welcomed so affectionately!" said the Reverend Mr. Spangler to himself.
The gentle warmth of that welcome lingered persistently in Mr. Spangler's mind.
"I suspect that she kissed him," he said to himself; and a little dull red crept into his cheeks.
Miss Ellen, dark-eyed, gentle, with soft lips, made Mr. Spangler suddenly think of a spray of heliotrope warm in the sunshine. "That is a very poetical thought," he said, with a sense of regret that it probably could not be utilized in a sermon. But when he entered the study he banished poetry, because he had a letter to write. It was in answer to an offer of the secretaryship of a church publishing-house in a Western city.
Dr. Lavendar, it appeared, had mentioned Mr. Spangler's name to one Mr. Horatius Brown, stating that in his opinion Mr. Spangler was just the man for the place – "exact, painstaking, conscientious," Mr. Brown quoted in his letter; but forbore to add Dr. Lavendar's further remark that Mr. Spangler would never embarrass the management by an original idea. "He'll pick up pins as faithfully as any man I know," said Dr. Lavendar, "and that's what you religious newspapers want, I believe?" Mr. Spangler was not without a solemn pride in being thus sought out by the ecclesiastical business world, especially when he reflected upon the salary which Mr. Brown was prepared to offer; but acceptance was another matter. To leave his high calling for mere business! A business, too, which would involve exact hours and steady application; – Compared with that, and with the crude, smart bustle of the Western city, the frugal leisure of his placid days in Mercer assumed in his mind the sanctity of withdrawal from the world, and his occasional preaching took on the glow of missionary zeal. "No," said Mr. Spangler, "mercenary considerations do not move me a hair's-breadth." Mr. Spangler did not call his tranquil life in Mercer, his comfortable old house, his good cook, his old friends, his freedom from sermon-writing,
