1868.]
59I
DALLAS GALBRAITH.
breathed; and you have no idea how dumb I am. My head does ache horri bly !” giving the “ Cosmos” a push and
coming to the window. “Yes; go put on your habit. I am going down the river-road. I will meet Doctor Pritchard somewhere there, and
bid him good-bye.” Honora put up both hands to shelter her face from the sun. “ No, I will not
“You need not keep them then,” eagerly. “Give them to your friend,
Doctor Pritchard, if you choose.” “ From you, Honora ?” “ No, uncle. My name must not be mentioned there,” with sudden emphatic gravity.
After Mr. Galbraith’s horse had trotted down the road, she leaned a long time on the gate, thinking.
She was sure
that Dallas would guess that she had
ride this morning,” in a low voice. Mr. Galbraith pulled his spectacles
down over his eyes to look at her.
cut the flowers for her uncle. She pic tured him, gaunt and hollow-eyed, this
“The air is from the mountains,” he
morning, at the thought of her displeas
persisted. “I thought it would be but friendly to meet Pritchard and bid him
ure, manceuvring to possess himself of one—hiding it, wearing it, as a knight of old was wont to wear his lady’s colors, until he came back at the end of the year, having won his golden spurs, to claim—his own.
God-speed.
It is a long, dangerous
journey the foolish old fellow has under taken.”
“ You had better go with your uncle, Honora,” said Mrs. Rattlin, who came up just then, patting her on the shoulder
I hisDallas breakfast. always liked a hearty at thatHemoment was finishing
in her motherly way. But, to her dismay, the tears began to
roll down the girl’s pale cheeks.
“I
wish you would not worry me, uncle!” she sobbed. “ How could you ask me to do that? How could you? I did not know it was a dangerous journey.” “Go take your ride, Mr. Galbraith,” said Mrs. Rattlin, quietly. “Don't be uneasy about Honora. It’s her spine. Girls are all weakly, nervous things now a-days. Go and lie down a while, Ho
nora dear.” But Honora slipped away from them both. and went down, slowly, to the gar den—to the orchard—into the green house. As she watched her uncle’s
horse coming to the door, ready for him to mount, the tears dried and her face
breakfast. It was a question whether he or Matt had done most justice to the chickens, and waflles, and cream-gravy.
As for Lizzy and Mrs. Beck, they ate but little, and with that little Peggy lit erally mingled her tears. Mr. Beck, last night, had given them vague ideas of the vast wildernesses waiting to be explored
by Dallas, and they had sat up until near dawn to talk of it. “ Miss Byrne took it worse than my wife,” said Beck, when they went up for Galbraith’s luggage. “ One ’ud think
your road was beset by cannibals, by the way she watches you. Women beats all. If you stick an idee in their heads as bare as a broom-stick, they’ll have it
began to burn hot as the cactus-blooms
up and flourishin’ like a green bay tree
behind her. In a little while he would be on the hill-road, where Doctor Pritch ard must pass.
in no time.” “I don’t know much about them,”
A quarter of an hour afterward, when
time to speculate on women or their idiosyncrasies. There were some bits of rock which he wanted to take with him for comparison, and he had not yet
Mr. Galbraith stopped his horse to un fasten the gate, there stood Miss Dun das waiting, eyes and cheeks aflame. “I cut some flowers for you, uncle.” Mr. Galbraith saw that his green house had been altogether rifled. “ But I like out-door flowers best, you know, Nora.”
said Galbraith, indifferently.
chosen them.
He had no
He began to choose and
pack them now. Now that he had his work in hand, it was curious how the image of Honora,
over which he had been brooding for
