26
DALLAS GALBRAITIJ.
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“ I t is something which will help you
He did not answer her for a minute,
to paint better all your life,” she said.
and then said, “You clon’t know how
She stopped at the hall-door to call to George‘s mother-~a little, withered old body in a clean, brown calico dress, her gray hair knotted back without a cap who was putting some chickens in the coop. She came up with a significant smile in her eyes. “ N0, Lizzy, I’ll not go in with you,” whispering in her weak, pleasant little quaver of a voice. “ The lad’s more of a stranger to me than to you, and it might damp his pleasure. He‘s had
different it was with me back yonder. I wasn't like other boys.” She turned her head quickly away, fearing to pry into his secret. “ It was not I who thought of this,” she said, with a little heat on her face, “ nor Laddoun. It was Jim Van Zeldt.
hard roughing it in the world, I’m afraid, poor child!” and she stood nodding and smiling to them as they went over to the low, painted pine door, and after they
had gone in, nodded and smiled to her chickens, talking about it to herself. Now they were in the room, Lizzy had meant to make the matter very plain to Dallas, but she forgot all that she had thought to say. “Ve wanted our best friend to come and live with us,” she stammered out, the tears coming to her eyes; “ and that is you, Dallas. And the people in the village wished you to know who were your friends, and they sent you these tokens_-for--for your home. Their names are on them.” Vhen he turned, pale and astonished, she had slipped past him and closed the door behind her. She wanted him to be alone, to go over the little gifts with which the room was filled, from the rag carpet, which only Mrs. Laddoun could weave, to the fire-irons from poor Becker, the smith. She wanted him to find that there was no name omitted, no man or
woman in the village who did not count him as a friend.
When she went in
again, which she did not do for a long time, the lad was standing with his back to her, looking in the fire; and as she
came up to him, she saw how colorless he was. He talked but little at any time, and when he was deeply moved was dumb, as now. Even Lizzy’s sensi ble eyes grew dim when she looked at him. “I did not think the trifles would matter so much to you, Dallas,” touching his arm gently.
Last summer, after the sickness, he said
the village owed you some sign of thanks. ]im’s heart’s in the right place,” speak ing with an effort. Lizzy was always eager to do justice to the man whose love she had put from her. She saw that Galbraith would not talk of it, even to her. So she turned and went into the little dining-room, where the table was set for supper. He came out presently, and followed her about in a dog-like way, trying to help her, his face still and bright.
“ He said hardlyaword,” old Mrs. Lad doun said afterwards, “but he looked as if a heart of stone had been taken from him, and a heart of flesh put in him that night.” The evening came on quickly. Lizzy closed the doors and lit the lamp, to shut out the twilight and the rising sound of the tide. Laddoun had not come. His mother, who had nobody else to care for, and was as nervous about the
man as when he had been a tottering baby, put on her cloak and went in
search of him.
Lizzy lahghed at her,
tying her own woollen cap on her head ; but after another hour had passed, she grew more silent and moved about un easily, glancing out of the window, her face paler. Laddoun was not wont to neglect her, and this was the eve of their wedding. An hour or two before they had heard loud voices down on the beach,
and had seen two or three men lounging at intervals down through the marshes : they knew Van Zeldt’s schooner was in. “ But even if George had gone to help unload her,” she said anxiously to Galbraith, “ they have stopped work now. The Graahs passed by half an hour ago back to the house ; and there are two of the wreckers,” as a couple of
