in these pages). So it was like him to say, with a sigh, "I had hoped to hear you use the old name."
That sigh made her look at him sharply. He knew that he must be careful with Grizel, and that she was irritated, but he had to go on.
"It is strange to me," said Sentimental Tommy, "to be back here after all those years, walking this familiar road once more with you. I thought it would make me feel myself a boy again, but, heigh-ho, it has just the opposite effect: I never felt so old as I do to-day."
His voice trembled a little, I don't know why. Grizel frowned.
"But you never were as old as you are to-day, were you?" she inquired politely. It whisked Tommy out of dangerous waters and laid him at her feet. He laughed, not perceptibly or audibly, of course, but somewhere inside him the bell rang. No one could laugh more heartily at himself than Tommy, and none bore less malice to those who brought him to land.
"That, at any rate, makes me feel younger," he said candidly; and now the shyness was in full flight.
"Why?" asked Grizel, still watchful.
"It is so like the kind of thing you used to say to me when we were boy and girl. I used to enrage you very much, I fear," he said, half gleefully.
"Yes," she admitted, with a smile, "you did."
"And then how you rocked your arms at me, Grizel! Do you remember?"
She remembered it all so well! This rocking of the arms, as they called it, was a trick of hers that signified sudden joy or pain. They hung rigid by her side, and then shook violently with emotion.
"Do you ever rock them now when people annoy you?" he asked.
"There has been no one to annoy me," she replied demurely, "since you went away."
"But I have come back," Tommy said, looking hopefully at her arms.
"You see they take no notice of you."
"They don't remember me yet. As soon as they do they will cry out."
Grizel shook her head confidently, and in this she was pitting herself against Tommy, always a bold thing to do.
"I have been to see Corp's baby," he said suddenly; and this was so important that she stopped in the middle of the road.
"What do you think of him?" she asked, quite anxiously.
"I thought," replied Tommy, gravely, and making use of one of Grizel's pet phrases, "I thought he was just sweet."
"Isn't he!" she cried; and then she knew that he was making fun of her. Her arms rocked.
"Hurray!" cried Tommy, "they recognize me now! Don't be angry, Grizel," he begged her. "You taught me, long ago, what was the right thing to say about babies, and how could I be sure it was you until I saw your arms rocking?"
"It was so like you," she said reproachfully, "to try to make me do it."
"It was so unlike you," he replied craftily, "to let me succeed. And, after all, Grizel, if I was horrid in the old days I always apologized."
"Never!" she insisted.
"Well, then," said Tommy, handsomely, "I do so now"; and then they both laughed gaily, and I think Grizel was not sorry that there was a little of the boy who had been horrid left in Tommy—just enough to know him by.
"He'll be vain," her aged maid, Maggy Ann, said curiously to her that evening. They were all curious about Tommy.
"I don't know that he is vain," Grizel replied guardedly.
"If he's no vain," Maggy Ann retorted, "he's the first son of Adam it could be said o'. I jalouse it's his bit book."
"He scarcely mentioned it."
"Ay, then, it's his beard."
Grizel was sure it was not that.
"Then it'll be the women," said Maggy Ann.
"Who knows!" said Grizel of the watchful eyes; but she smiled to herself. She thought not incorrectly that she knew one woman of whom Mr. Sandys was a little afraid.
About the same time Tommy and Elspeth were discussing her. Elspeth was in bed, and Tommy had come into the room to kiss her good-night—he had never once omitted doing it since they went to London, and he was always to do it, for neither of them was ever to marry.
"What do you think of her?" Elspeth asked. This was their great time for confidences.
"Of whom?" Tommy inquired lightly.
"Grizel."
He must be careful.
"Rather pretty, don't you think?" he said, gazing at the ceiling.
She was looking at him keenly, but he managed to deceive her. She was much relieved, and could say what was in her heart. "Tommy," she said, "I think she is the most noble-looking girl I ever saw, and if she were not so masterful in her manner she would be beautiful." It was nice of Elspeth to say it, for she and Grizel were never very great friends.
Tommy brought down his eyes. "Did you think as much of her as that?" he said. "It struck me that her features were not quite classic. Her nose is a little tilted, is it not?"
"Some people like that kind of nose," replied Elspeth. "It is not classic," Tommy said sternly.
CHAPTER VI
GHOSTS THAT HAUNT THE DEN
Looking through the Tommy papers of this period, like a conscientious biographer, I find among them manuscripts that remind me how diligently he set to work at his new book the moment he went North, and also letters which, if printed, would show you what a wise and good man Tommy was. But while I was fingering those, there floated from them to the floor a loose page, and when I saw that it was a chemist's bill for oil and liniment I remembered something I had nigh forgotten. "Eureka!" I cried. "I shall tell the story of the chemist's bill, and some other biographer may print the letters."
Well, well! but to think that this scrap of paper should flutter into view to damn him after all those years!
The date is Saturday, May 28, by which time Tommy had been a week in Thrums without doing anything very reprehensible, so far as Grizel knew. She watched for telltales as for a mouse to show at its hole, and at the worst, I think, she saw only its little head. That was when Tommy was talking beautifully to her about her dear doctor. He would have done wisely to avoid this subject; but he was so notoriously good at condolences that he had to say it. He had thought it out, you may remember, a year ago, but hesitated
