comes stealing in her life like a mystery, and she likes that. I guess we’ve got to let him have her. We couldn’t stop him, anyway. He’ll tame her and she’ll do him good. I expect he’s mortal blue at times.”
Mr. Danvers relapsed into sullenness, tinged with vindictiveness. He understood his wife well enough to know that the burden of her talk was the duty of resignation. “You’ve always been hard on that girl,” he said, irascibly.
“Hard on her, Israel! Seventeen years I’ve had her, and there isn’t a soul in Rubicon Meadows besides you that guesses she isn’t our own child. How’s that for being hard on her?”
Melinda’s eyes were sparkling. She looked ten years younger than she had before their conversation began, and he abruptly drifted into memories of bygone days. So far back did he go that it was some time before he murmured, absently: “Howsomever, you’ve been well paid for it.”
“Paid for it,” she repeated, with asperity, “there are some things money can’t pay for.”
This was a statement he could not deny, yet in some indefinable and inexplicable way he felt that she had been slightly lacking in her duty to the lovable butterfly outside. Melinda did not admire the pretty creature as he did; and at this very instant her unusual outspokenness and animation arose from her acute suspicion that their vivacious charge was about spreading her wings for flight.
She was a good woman, though, this wife of his, and she was only a trifle queer. However, everybody seemed queer but himself, and he sank into bitter and resigned reflection, and muttered, almost inaudibly, “After all said and done, we’ve got to take folks after the pattern they’re made, and not as we’d make ’em over.”
Mrs. Danvers saw that the tide was turning. “Israel,” she said, solemnly shaking her head at him, “no one will ever know what I’ve gone through with that child. When she was laid in my arms a little, motherless babe, and her tiny fingers curled around mine, my heart went out to her. She’s got it yet, but she’s been greatly provoking, and you’ve made too much of her, Israel, you know you have.”
“I’ll not deny I’ve favoured her some,” he said, gruffly.
“I’ve never spoken about it before,” she replied, nervously, “and I’ll never say it again; but I’ve been jealous of that girl, Israel, real jealous; and yet, with it all, you’ll not miss her as much when she goes as I will. A man gets over things. A woman broods.”
Mr. Danvers weakly toyed with a morsel of bread.
“I’ve got some of the mother spirit,” his wife went on, with tears in her eyes. “Enough of it, thank the Lord, to make me sorry to have her go. We’ve got to be lonely, Israel, real lonely, after she leaves, and I’m glad to have this talk first.”
Mr. Danvers was embarrassed, exceedingly embarrassed; and for the first time in his life was willing to acknowledge that possibly he might have done wrong, possibly he might have indulged too much the pink and white gipsy in the muslin frock outside. However, it was not befitting his position as head of the household to eat too large a piece of humble pie at one time, so he said, protestingly, “As for jealousy, how you women run on. You’re just like wildfire. Now I’ve liked that little girl just as if she was my own, but not like you, Melinda. A man’s wife is different. I wonder you speak of such a thing, and I a deacon in the church.”
“I wasn’t speaking of anything but your acting like a foolish father,” she said, indignantly. “Of course you’d never think of comparing Nina to me. She’s only a baby, and whatever happens, Israel Danvers, I hope you’ll remember I am your wedded wife. I know I’m getting old—”
She broke down, and tears finished the sentence.
Mr. Danvers was aghast. He had not seen her cry for twenty years—not since her mother died. Getting up with difficulty, he waddled to her end of the table, and, gingerly tapping her shoulder, ejaculated, “So, so, there—so, so.”
Mrs. Danvers wiped her eyes and gave him a slight push. “I’m not a cow, Israel, and go back to your seat. There’s some one coming.”
Nina was quietly slipping in through the window. Approaching the foot of the table, she took Mr. Danvers’s bald head in her embrace and kissed him sweetly and fervently. Then, nearing the head of the table, she pecked at Mrs. Danvers’s cheek in an affectionate but perfunctory manner.
“Here’s your mush,” said Mrs. Danvers, uncovering a small bowl. “Israel, pass the cream; where’s Captain Fordyce, Nina?”
“I left him on the bridge. I think he must be waiting for the moon,” she said, seriously.
Her lips were pale, and there was a nervous expression about her eyes, and Mrs. Danvers said to herself, “They’ve had a quarrel.”
“Ever see him by daylight before, pussy?” asked Mr. Danvers.
“No, daddy.”
“Must look kind of queer.”
“He looks older,” said the girl, with her spoon poised over her mush. She had fallen into a reverie and was gazing fixedly out the window. After a time she roused herself and said: “He had a faint turn on the bridge.”
“He—faint?” said Mrs. Danvers, incredulously.
“Yes,” said Nina, with a queer look, and dropping her eyes. “He has been working hard and not eating much, and the sun shone on his head and made him dizzy. I thought, mamma, you might give him some medicine.”
“I’ll give him some if he’ll take it,” said Mrs. Danvers, grimly, “but he’s not one to be coddled. What is he coming in the daytime for? Does he want anything particular?”
Nina turned quickly and gave her an owlish stare—a stare so sudden that Mrs. Danvers had not time to avert her own gray eyes shining with so glad a light.
“Would you let him marry me right away, mamma, if he wanted to?”
“Well,” hesitated Mrs. Danvers, “your case isn’t like others. Of course your engagement has been standing a good while.”
“Does he want to marry you right off?” asked Mr. Danvers, sharply.
“Yes, dear daddy,” said the girl, softly, “but you won’t let me go, will you?”
Mr. Danvers tried to speak, but only uttered a low, confused rumble like that of a helpless animal. He could do nothing, and the girl turned to her adopted mother. Her curiously expectant glance was not met. Mrs. Danvers’s head was bent over her plate. There was no protest there. The marriage must take place.
Nina, having fully satisfied herself on this point, reached out her hand for the sugar-bowl; and, carefully dusting her oatmeal, poured cream on it, and proceeded to take her breakfast in silence and composure.
“Why, there’s Captain Fordyce,” said Mrs. Danvers, suddenly. “Come in, come in,” she went on, addressing the sailor, who stood by the low, open window. “You must want some breakfast.”
They were all staring at him, but he looked his usual self, and, with a brief salutation to his host and hostess, he entered the room and seated himself at the table.
“Have some hot drink,”
