EVERYBODY liked Mattie and Hattie Pratt, and it would have been strange if such had not been the case. Even the fact of their universal popularity failed to create cavillers. The boys and girls of Dunbridge would as soon have thought of questioning the merits of the sunshine and the west wind, as the claims of Mattie and Hattie to their loyal goodwill. Indeed the simile is not inapt. The darkeyed Mattie, four years the elder, had in her disposition much of the staying, heart-warming quality of sunshine, while there was a refreshing breeziness about her sister which was ever welcome and ever new.
It had been something of a trial to Mrs. Ben Pratt, who was not without a sense of euphony, that the exigencies of family relationship should have obliged her to name her two daughters Martha and Harriet. The inevitableness of the descent to "Mattie" and "Hattie" could not be denied, and the hopeless lack of distinction in the reiteration of that flat a was very depressing to a woman who was something of a connoisseur in names, having herself been born a Hazeldean. But Ben would not hear of calling the first daughter for any one but his wife, and when, four years later, the second girl appeared upon the scene, Mrs. Ben could do no less than reciprocate, by naming her for her husband's eldest sister, Harriet. More especially since a boy, whose arrival had intervened, bore his mother's maiden name of Hazeldean. By the exercise of great vigilance and determination Mrs. Ben succeeded in keeping Hazeldean's name intact, but this effort so exhausted her energies that she yielded the "Mattie" and "Hattie" almost without a struggle.
Names, however, owe their chief significance to the people who bear them, and it rarely occurred to any one but Mrs. Ben that the names Mattie Pratt and Hattie Pratt could be improved upon.
On second thoughts that statement demands modification. Before the time of our story—when Mattie had reached the mature age of twenty-three—more than one young man had thought that his own surname might be substituted with advantage for hers. Unfortunately for these young men, Mattie had not been of the same mind. She had considered the claims of each candidate with a deliberateness, which in a less sincere and kindly young person might have been censured, and then she had skilfully transformed the misguided aspirant into a more or less resigned friend.
The nineteen-year old Hattie had, up to this time, boasted but one actual "offer." It was on the day that Dickie Lewis first went into trousers, that he set himself to sue for the very sticky hand of his young contemporary in a gingham apron. This interesting scene occurred during the school recess, the maiden of his choice being at the moment engaged in eating molasses candy behind the currant bushes. A large piece of this delectable concoction was rapidly reducing itself to its original consistency in her warm little grasp, while he made his declaration of undying devotion. Little Hattie gazed with the most flattering interest at Dicky in his newly acquired dignity. Those trousers were very imposing. But yet, but yet, she felt in her heart of hearts that she loved Jimmy Jones, with the court-plaster on his nose, better than she loved Dicky, and truth compelled her to say so. 'Touched by the hopelessness of Dicky's case, she held out to him the whole big piece of molasses candy, and to her mingled relief and chagrin, he seized and devoured it, with an appetite unimpaired by his disappointment. Hattie Pratt's faith in manly devotion had never recovered from that crushing blow. As she grew older she regarded the comings and goings of her sister's lovers with a certain scepticism, and when any rash young man ventured to bestow upon her a sentimental word or look she remembered Dicky Lewis and laughed it off. Thus it will be seen how an early disenchantment may eat into the fabric of one's faith in human nature.
Among the frequenters of the Ben Pratt house, a stranger had recently enrolled himself, a stranger whose assiduity in calling once a week did not escape Hattie's mocking criticism. He was the new head-master of the high-school, a tall, grave-looking individual, who wore glasses and limped slightly. Indeed, his limp was so very slight that the irreverent Hattie concluded that his shoes were too tight for him.
Mr. Emerson Swain, for such was his classic name, had seemed so particularly fitted for his post as schoolmaster, and so entirely unfitted to play any lighter rôle, that his arrival in town had occasioned very little comment or inquiry. Nothing was known of him beyond the fact that he had come highly recommended by the authorities of a Western college, that his learning was probably profound, and his social talents correspondingly limited. On the occasion of his first appearance at a social gathering in Dunbridge he had made the acquaintance of the Pratt girls, and, to every one's amusement, it became evident that he had straightway fallen a victim to Mattie's charms. With old-fashioned punctiliousness, he had, a few days later, sought an introduction to Mrs. Ben, and asked permission to call upon herself and her daughters. From that time forward he was a weekly visitor at their house. He usually came on Saturday evening, as a reward, Hattie declared, for having "tried all the week to be good." It was his habit to remain exactly one hour, which time was passed in conversation with Mattie and the elder members of the family. Hattie, who had no mind to allow herself to be shut out in the cold, and who usually sat by with Dixie, the fox-terrier, in her lap, used occasionally to throw in a light-minded observation, thus giving an unexpected turn to the conversation, and causing Mr. Emerson Swain to gaze benignantly at her through his spectacles. "It is such fun to make him blink at me," the bad child would say, when remonstrated with by her family.
Mr. Swain's conversation was quite worth listening to in a very different spirit from that which Hattie deigned to honor it with. Mrs. Ben maintained that he had "the best informed mind" she had ever met with, and she confided to her mother-in-law, Old Lady Pratt, that she almost hoped that Mattie might fancy him.
"It's high time she fancied somebody!" the old lady had declared, true as always to her faith in early marriages. Mattie, for her part, listened most politely and attentively to all the schoolmaster had to say, responding in a ladylike manner, which seemed to give him entire satisfaction, if one might judge by the regularity of his visits. She did not acknowledge, even to her family, that she found such elevated conversation a trifle tedious.
"Why do you stay in the room when Mr. Swain calls?" she would ask Hattie. "You might just as well be amusing yourself in the library."
"Oh, but he amuses me," Hattie would cry. "He's just nuts! He arranges his sentences so beautifully, and his spectacles look so owlish. Do you know, Mattie, he seems a great deal too old and solemn to fall in love."
"Very likely he is," assented Mattie, for the two girls had agreed between themselves that he must be "well over thirty." "There isn't any question of his falling in love, as far as I know."
Now Hattie Pratt, though not of a literary turn of mind, had a certain knack with her pen, which had stood her in good stead in more than one of the small crises of her lively existence. One day in February she might have been seen curled up in the cushioned window-seat of the parlor, in close consultation with the lyric muse. It was a Sunday afternoon, and she had some misgivings as to the godliness of her undertaking. But, unfortunately for her Sabbath-day morals, an incident had occurred on the previous evening which had filled her with thoughts of vengeance, whose execution would no longer be deferred.
Mr. Swain had been speaking of one of the assistant teachers at the high-school, the teacher who had the misfortune to stutter as often as he became at all agitated, and Hattie, who was a natural mimic, could not let pass such an opportunity for the display of her powers. At mention of the young man's name, she cried, in excellent imitation of him: "B-b-boys! Such b-b-behavior is inexc-c-cusable."
Their visitor had looked at her reproachfully through his glasses, and had said, with most uncalled-for emphasis: "Yes, Miss Hattie, it is a cruel infirmity."
For once, Hattie's ready wit had deserted her. To her consternation and disgust, she felt the blood rush to her face, and she dropped her eyes before those penetrating spectacles, in unwilling acknowledgment of defeat. She shuddered even now as she thought of her discomfiture, and then she wet the point of her pencil on the tip of her small, unruly tongue, and applied herself with renewed concentration to the work of vengeance. The day had been beautiful. The level rays of the sun, which was sinking in the west, fell aslant of Hattie's curly brown head, revealing a picturesque disorder, which frequent wild clutches for inspiration had wrought. With her feet drawn up under her, and her head bent over her work, all semblance of her graceful little person was lost. Suddenly her brow cleared, her pencil raced over the paper, and, with a sigh of successful accomplishment, she sat up straight, extending her slippered feet to the end of the cushion, leaned her head against the casement, and fell to reading her effusion: "To My Chosen Swain.
Rather come and kneel at mine.
Black eyes cold and cruel be,
Black eyes are not meant for thee.
What my name, and what the hue
Of my eyes, I'd tell thee true,
But, too timid to confess,
I must leave thy wit to guess,—
Guess the secret that is thine,
If thou wilt be my Valentine."
"There! If that doesn't make him blink his conceited old eyes," she thought, with vengeful glee.
The sun was already cut in two by the line of a black hill on the horizon. Hattie turned and looked straight into the golden disk. Her strong young eyes, which had fallen before a certain pair of spectacles, did not waver in the face of the god of day. Her cheeks were flushed from the mental strain of composition, and her eyes were bright. As the sun dropped behind the hill a golden light crept up into the sky, higher and higher, and then the most beautiful waves of color spread themselves along the line of low hills. The young face softened, the lips that had been so firmly compressed relaxed into their natural sweet expression, and a dreamy, faraway look came into the dark-blue eyes. The splendors of the sunset deepened and grew, and then the color faded, and the last uncertain light fell upon the face of a sleeping child, a face where long dark lashes fringed the closed lids, and a mouth as innocent as a baby's was parted in a half smile.
When Hattie awoke, however, at the lighting of the gas, the spirit of mischief awoke with her. For though her face had softened when the sunset color swept the sky, her hard little heart had not changed one bit.
She ran to her own room where she would be safe from disturbance, and there she copied her verses in an elaborately disguised hand. For to-morrow would be St. Valentine's day, and the shot must be fired early in the morning.
Accordingly, when her father was starting, the next day, to drive into the city, she gave him the letter "to post in town." Ben, to whom all girls' scrawls looked exactly alike, did not observe anything peculiar about the handwriting, and readily undertook to do his daughter's bidding. Ben was a fairly obedient father in all small matters, and as such was a great favorite with his children. As the day went by Hattie was full of self-glorification.
"He may not get it till to-morrow," she reflected, "but he will know it was sent to-day, and won't he be puzzled? Oh! I am so glad I did it! I am so glad I did it!"
Poor Hattie! Her joy was to be short-lived!
"Rather, did you post my letter?" she asked, as she helped him off with his great-coat that evening. Mr. Ben Pratt's face was red and his whiskers prickly with the frost as Hattie had discovered when she kissed him a moment before. The dutiful father beamed with inward satisfaction, as he rubbed his hands together to get them warm.
"Better than that! Better than that!" he answered. "I met Mr. Swain just as I turned into Main Street, and for once I had my wits about me."
"You didn't give him the letter!" cried Hattie, in breathless suspense.
"That's just what I did do," her father answered, complacently. "I told him it was something my daughter Hattie had asked me to post, and I thought perhaps he could find the owner," and Ben passed on into the warm library without a glance at the miserable little victim of his ill-judged zeal.
Hattie meanwhile had fled up-stairs, with pert little Dixie close at her heels. As she shut the chamber door behind her, Dixie, at the risk of his life, dashed in, giving a squeal of anguish as the door nipped his tail.
"O Dixie, you poor little angel," she cried, seizing the small imp in her arms, "did I squeeze his tail in the door? Oh! how could I?" and she tenderly laid him on the bed, and knelt beside him, incoherent and distracted. "O Dixie! Dixie! That horrid man! And your poor little tail! And he knows who wroteit! And he will think!—oh! what won't he think! And how it must have hurt, you poor little martyr. And oh, dear, how I wish I was dead! O Dixie! Dixie! did it hurt very bad?"
All this time the "poor little martyr" was beating the coverlid with his injured tail, and industriously licking his mistress' nose and chin and eyebrows, saying, as plainly as he knew how, that he had forgotten all about his tail, and the best thing she could do would be to forget all about that horrid man too. And then the supper bell rang, and Hattie had to wash away the traces of her tears and go down and face her family, Dixie following close behind. At supper Hattie seemed to be in hilarious spirits, which her family attributed to the half-dozen valentines she had received in the course of the day. She chattered like a magpie, and gave Hazeldean tit for tat in a manner that delighted her father, and caused her mother to wonder whether she would never grow up. But all the while a certain foolish bit of doggerel was ringing in her ears, sending the blood in sudden tingling waves up among the curls in her forehead.
If thou wilt be my Valentine."
Ugh-h—
Oh! how hideous it all was! How perfectly hideous!
The next day went by, and the world had not come to an end. Wednesday came, and Thursday, and Hattie began to wish that something would happen, if only to end this wretched suspense. And then on Friday something did happen.
It had been raining hard all day. The streets were rivers and the side-walks ponds. Hattie had been shut up in the house for so many hours that she suddenly discovered that she could not bear it another minute. She declared her intention of going out for a walk, and, wrapped in a long waterproof cloak, with the hood over her head, she was soon splashing along the sidewalk in her rubber boots, the excitable Dixie racing on ahead and barking wildly. She did not carry an umbrella. Waterproof cloaks had only lately come into fashion, and the owner of one would have scorned an umbrella.
The rain splashed in her face and collected in the "puckers" of her hood. Her hair lay in spirals, beaten flat against her wet forehead. She trudged along, enjoying this conflict with the elements as much as she could enjoy anything just then. She looked at the gambols of Dixie with the melancholy indulgence with which an aged person regards the sports of children. Still that miserable jingle pursued her, echoing through her brain with senseless persistency.
Rather come and kneel at mine."
She was out on the long bridge now that led to the city. She did not often get so far as that in her walks, even on a fair day. Here the wind had room to rage, unimpeded by trees or buildings. She bent her head and fought her way in the teeth of the storm, looking neither to the right nor to the left, where, on either side of the bridge, the great sheets of ice were being tossed upon the dark waters.
Suddenly Dixie gave a joyful bark of recognition, and a pair of long legs, clad in much-bespattered trousers, appeared a few feet away, in the line of her down bent vision. She steered off to the right, but the legs stood still, and an alarmingly familiar voice exclaimed:
"Why! Miss Hattie! Where are you going?"
"I am going for a walk, Mr. Swain," she said, distinctly, trying to pass him by.
"Ror a walk? My child, are you crazy? You will get blown off the bridge!"
He had turned and was walking by her side. She said nothing, but pushed on faster and faster.
"I see you are trying to get away from me," he remarked, as he easily kept alongside of her, in spite of his slightly limping gait.
"I came out to have a walk by myself," she shouted back, for the wind was roaring.
"I shall not let you walk alone on this bridge," he declared. His tone of calm authority exasperated her.
"I don't know what right you have to force your company upon me," cried Hattie, lifting her face defiantly, unmindful of the storm that beat upon it.
He looked down upon her, as he walked by her side, and quietly took in the picture. The slender figure battling with the storm, the crimson cheeks and sparkling eyes, the rain-drenched hair, the tiny waterfalls on the end of her nose and chin. The wind suddenly subsided, and it became so quiet that he could hear the splash of the water, as she resolutely tramped along.
"I have the best right in the world to take care of you," he said, in a low, penetrating voice, "because I love you."
"You don't, you know you don't!" cried Hattie, with such vociferous denial that Dixie felt called upon to interfere, and sprang wildly about her and upon her.
The wind had risen again, and her tormentor shouted: "Won't you please turn back now?"
Mechanically she turned, and having the wind at their backs, they went on faster than before. But the bridge seemed to Hattie perfectly interminable. On and on she tramped, with the rain beating upon her shoulders like a hundred hands. Would she never get away from this "dreadful man," keeping pace with her so persistently, and knowing that she knew that he had said those horrible, those insulting words. For what was it but an insult to tell her that he loved her, when she knew it was just because he had been so stupidly conceited as to think she was in earnest when she wrote that wretched valentine.
At last they left the bridge and passed on into the town, where they were somewhat sheltered from the storm. They were still two miles from home. Not acreature was moving in the streets besides the rain-drenched trio, man and girl and dog. They might as well have been on a desert island, for any chances there were of interruption. And still he walked like a shadow at her side.
"You contradicted me just now," he said at last, firmly and deliberately, "and so I must tell you again that I love you. I have loved you ever since I knew you, but I did not think I should tell you so. It was not very likely that you would ever care for a half-blind cripple like me. But at least I could see you often, and hear your voice, and know a little of what was passing in your mind, and that was something. I even fancied that we might get to be friends some day. But when you sent me that valentine, although, of course, you never meant me to know who wrote it, I knew it was either one of two things—either you liked mea little, or you despised me. And though I am afraid I know your answer beforehand, I must have it. Hattie, am I right? Was it one of those two things?"
"You don't love me," she cried again, with increasing vehemence. "You don't love me! You love somebody else! You haven't any right to talk to me like that. You thought I meant that odious valentine. I didn't mean it. Nobody meant it. It was nothing at all."
"Hattie," he cried, with a sudden access of anger, which was not altogether unbecoming; "Hattie, you shall not talk to me like that. You shall listen tome. You shall believe what I say! I do love you—I love you with all my heart. I loved you the first time I ever saw you—I have thought of you from morning till night every day of my life since that day. I love you always—I love you when I am with you, and I love you when you are absent. I love you when you are sweet and kind, and I love you when you are—not sweet and kind. I love all your looks, and all your words—I would dare swear that I love all the thoughts you think!"
On and on they tramped, through the rain and the mud, and on and on he talked. He, who usually "arranged his sentences so beautifully," could not seem to talk fast enough, to say what he had to say. She did not hear half his words. They were drowned and confused by the wind and the rain, by her own bewildering emotions. Only one terrible, overwhelming fact was borne in upon her guilty little soul. He did love her, and she could not help herself.
At last they got to her own gate, and, with his hand upon it, he said: "Hattie! Which is it? Tell me once for all. Do you love me, or do you despise me?"
Then Hattie lifted up her head and looked him full in the face, and said: "Mr. Swain, I can't bear you!"
He opened the gate for her without another word, and, as she and Dixie passed through, he lifted his dripping hat and said good-bye.
Her mother met her at the door, anxious over her long absence, and Hattie threw herself, wet waterproof and all, upon her mother's neck, and cried: "O Mother! Mother! He says he loves me! That dreadful man!"
"My child, what do you mean?" cried Mrs. Ben, thinking that Hattie had taken leave of her senses. "Come up to your own room and get off these soaking things."
They went up-stairs, followed by the faithful Dixie.
"He says he loves me, Mother," she lamented again, as her mother pulled off her waterproof, and commanded her to change her shoes and stockings.
"And your petticoats are wet through!" cried Mrs. Ben. Her motherly heart was in much greater terror of colds than of lovers, which latter dispensation was in the natural order of things, and could not be averted.
It was not until the child was clothed again that her mother was ready to believe that she was also in her right mind, and then she sat down beside her, prepared for confidences.
But, the first rush of feeling being over, Hattie did not find it so easy to tell her story. She looked at Dixie as though she thought he might help her out of the difficulty. But Dixie, who evidently felt that one exciting scene was all that his nerves could bear, had curled himself up in a corner and sought refuge in slumber.
"Well, Hattie, now what is it?"
"Nothing, Mother, only he told me he loved me for more than two miles."
"Hattie Pratt!" cried Mrs. Ben, reduced to extremity. "If you don't tell me who it is that has been talking nonsense to you in all this mud and slosh—I'll shake you!"
This, though unquestionably a little mortifying to a young lady who had just received a declaration, was well calculated to recall her to her senses. And Hattie, with the frankness which was one of her brightest virtues, told her mother the whole story from beginning to end, palliating nothing, excusing nothing.
Mrs. Ben heroically suppressed her inclination to smile at this rather comical tale of woe, and, faithful to her sense of duty, said, severely: "And now you have got your deserts."
"O Mother! I didn't deserve anything so bad as that!" Hattie protested. "How can you say I deserved anything so bad as that?"
"Well," rejoined Mrs. Ben, "I think myself you have been sufficiently punished." She looked for a moment at the woe-begone face of the culprit, and then she said, consolingly: "Hattie, I don't believe he was as serious as he thought for, if that's any comfort to you. He has probably tried to make himself think he is in love with you, just to spare your feelings. Any gentleman would feel bound to do what he could in such a situation,—and Mr. Swain is a gentleman, if he is a little stiff in his manners."
"I think, Mother," Hattie replied, with conscious dignity, "that if you had heard him talk, you would not have any doubt about his being in earnest."
Nor did Hattie ever admit any question on that point. Emerson Swain's words, and still more his manner, had been too convincing. She could not mistake the accent of sincerity with which he had said: "I love you." Gradually the first horror with which those words had filled her wore away, and she began to think of them with something very like toleration. It was asthough they were repeated over and over every day, so haunting was the tone of voice in which they had been spoken. After all, he was a man, this grave, self-contained schoolmaster. It was a man's love that had been offered her, and not a boyish fancy. There was something wonderfully stirring in his honest passion, which had asserted itself'so stoutly, in spite of his self-distrust and genuine humble-mindedness. She could not forget his words—she could not forget him, though she saw no more of him in the weeks that followed. A strange humility had come over her. She began to feel as though an honor had befallen her, of which she had shown herself unworthy. She had not been enough of a woman to accept it, or even to appreciate it; but if she had been a great deal older and a great deal wiser, she might have taken it differently. She was sorry he did not come to the house any more. His conversation had really been very interesting. She would not have understood anything about the Mexican colonization scheme, and the tragic fate of Maximilian and Carlotta, if it had not been for Mr. Swain. He had promised, too, to take them all over to see the glass-works some day. She would have been glad to see the glass-works. Nobody else would ever think of taking them there. None of the young men they knew seemed to be interested in anything but themselves and their own concerns.
Perhaps Hattie might not have drawn so many comparisons in favor of her lame and spectacled suitor if his society had been thrust upon her. But ever since that eventful walk he had studiously avoided her. The blustering winter months had stormed themselves out, April, with all its sweet caprices, had gone the way of other tears and smiles, and now May had come, bringing young leaves and dandelions, and making green the lawns and hedges. And in all that time Mr. Hmerson Swain had only once come to the house. That was on an evening when he knew perfectly well that Mattie and Hattie had gone to a dance, and he made no pretence of having come to call on any one but their mother. Mrs. Ben had enjoyed his visit very much. She had found him so talkative and easy—not nearly so stiff in his manners as he used to be—that she felt justified in assuring Hattie that if he had ever suffered from any disappointment he must have got over it entirely.
But Hattie knew better. That faith in the immortality of love, which most young girls cherish, had asserted itself in her heart. Emerson Swain, who had given up the game with a half-pitiful, wholly-contemptuous smile at his own expense, would have been surprised and touched if he had suspected anything of the almost passionate loyalty with which his scornful little divinity believed in him.
Meanwhile the last of May had come, and Decoration Day was close at hand. Decoration Day, which meant so much when first it was celebrated, soon after the close of the war. It seemed that year as though the very flowers knew why they bloomed, and pressed forward to meet the day. In the fields about Dunbridge the daisies and buttercups ran riot, and all the brooksides were blue with long-stemmed violets. Brilliant columbines grew about the rocks, and fragile wood anemones and hardy cornel blossoms hid side by side in the woods. All the young people of the town had been out gathering them, and now, in the late afternoon, a score of them were met together in the high-school building, to weave their flowers into wreaths, and sword-hilts, and crosses. The next day the boys and girls would walk in procession, led by the little company of veterans, to lay the fading offerings upon the soldiers' graves. The youngest child who was to carry a posy could remember the war. There was no need to tell him what all these flowery tributes meant.
The group of young people in the schoolhouse worked together, subdued and solemnized by the memories the day recalled, and when the work was done they quietly dispersed, carrying their flowers with them to be kept fresh till morning. On the way home Hattie Pratt remembered that she had left her scissors behind her. She slipped away from the others, and, burdened with flowers as she was, she ran back alone to the schoolhouse. About her neck was a garland of daisies, a wreath of buttercups hung from her wrist, while other wreaths and garlands filled her arms.
Her light step made little sound as she ran up the stairs and into the great hall, the door of which was open. There among the litter of bright blossoms and green leaves stood Emerson Swain,—with his hands behind him looking down. In her haste Hattie had come close upon him before she saw him. She gave a little cry of consternation and started to leave the room. He too looked disconcerted, but when she turned to go he pulled himself together and said very composedly, "Don't let me drive you away, Miss Hattie. You have come back for something."
"Only my scissors," she stammered, "but it isn't of the least consequence."
"Let me help you find them."
And he began moving the fallen leaves and petals about with his cane. The scissors soon turned up. As he handed them to her he said:
"You will perhaps be glad to hear—that is, if you care about it one way or the other—that I am going away for good in July. I have not told any one yet, for my new appointment was only settled this morning."
Hattie stood still in helpless embarrassment. She felt that she must say something. Shecould not go away leaving such an announcement as that in mid-air. It would be too cowardly. At last she gave a constrained little laugh, and asked, inconsequently:
"What do you think of all this clutter in your schoolroom, Mr. Swain?"
He hesitated a moment—
"Would you like to know what I was thinking when you came in? Iwas wondering whether the fellows who got killed did not have the best of it after all. Whether it was not better, for instance, than hobbling through life?"
"But—but—you were not in the war," cried Hattie, suddenly forgetting her embarrassment and self-consciousness.
"And why not?"
"And did you get"
"Yes—I got shot."
Her eyes were big with wonder.
"Oh! please tell me about it. When did it happen? How did it happen?"
"It happened early in the war—I got well enough to go back again."
"You went back again after you had got shot?"
"Of course I did. Iwas not such a cripple that I could not serve. A lame leg," he added bitterly, "disables a man more in after life than it does in action. Men respect their captain none the less for being a little damaged."
"Oh! What did they do to thank you?"
He looked down upon the glowing young face rising up out of the garland of daisies, and he wished she would go home and not stay there looking like that. But he said in a matter-of-fact voice:
"They treated me very well—they made me a colonel before we got through."
"A colonel! How brave you must have been!"
And then, as she stood before him and met his eyes, into which a look had come which she did not quite understand, her self-consciousness came rushing back upon her, and she turned abruptly and awkwardly enough and left him.
She went down stairs and out into the long yellow sunlight, thinking new and solemn thoughts.
It was the first time that Hattie had ever been brought face to face with a personal heroism that rose above the commonplace of every day. It appealed to all her enthusiasm—all her idealism. It touched her as nothing else could have done, it made a woman of her. And yet she was still so much a child that her mood changed from moment to moment, her thoughts flew from great things to small, and all the while she never dreamed whither she was tending.
He had been in the war. He had stood his ground when the bullets whistled about him, when men fell dead on every side. He had been wounded, crippled, and then he had gone back and faced the bullets again. And Hazeldean had dared to call him "a muff." And she! And she! Oh! What had she been thinking of to treat him so! And she might never see him again. If he had avoided her for three months it was not likely that he would do any differently in the little time remaining. But she must ask his forgiveness. She could not let him go away forever with those contemptuous words to remember. He had offered her the devotion of a brave man, and like a petulant child she had flung back the proffered gift with scorn and contumely.
Then, as asudden anti-climax, came the memory of certain foolish words she had once spoken. Oh! dreadful thought! She had said his shoes were too tight for him! That smote her conscience more cruelly than all the rest, and without knowing when she had turned, she found herself hurrying back to the schoolhouse, with a wild terror lest he should be gone, and she should have lost her last chance to ask his forgiveness.
She ran up the stairs and burst into the room. There he stood, where she had left him, looking at the flowers that her feet had trodden upon.
"Mr. Swain!" she cried, still panting from her rapid walk, "Mr. Swain, I have come back because I was afraid I should never see you again, and I wanted to ask your pardon."
He looked down upon her, very gravely and indulgently.
"Ask my pardon for not liking me? You could not help it, little girl. There was no reason why you should have liked me. It was kinder to be truthful."
"But I was so rude! Oh, I was so abominable. Won't you please forgive me?"
"Miss Hattie," he said, his voice vibrating in spite of all he could do, "I will tell you something that I hope you may never have to learn in any other way. When a man gets maimed for life he does not particularly care whether it was a gunshot or a swordcut that did it."
"And you won't forgive me?" There were tears in the beseeching childlike eyes, and yet, in the gesture of entreaty, a certain dignity which was more appealing still.
"I don't see anything to forgive," he answered, with a strong effort to govern his voice. "But if it will make you any happier—yes—I forgive you."
He held out a very cold hand, which she took, dropping some of her flowers at his feet.
"I am so sorry!" she said again, pleadingly, with her hand still in his.
"Sorry you do not love me?"
"Sorry I said I didn't," she whispered very, very softly. But Emerson Swain thought he should have heard that whisper if he had been in battle, with the roar of the cannon in his ears.
They walked home together in the long afternoon light, home to Ben and his wife, whom they found pacing the garden path arminarm. These long-tried lovers looked incredulously at the apparition coming toward them. It was many weeks since they had seen this tall, limping figure within their gates. Did that usually grave face ever before seem so young and animated? did those gray eyes ever before send such a cheerful challenge through the intervening glasses? And more perplexing still was their own Hattie, decked out like a sacrificial lamb, with a look of radiant meekness in her face, which yet was a little pale and awe-struck.
She had not a word to say for herself, but Emerson Swain was under no embarrassment.
"Mrs. Pratt," he said, as they stopped before her, "Hattie has promised to be my Valentine henceforth and forever."
******
"And I believe they will be very happy," said Mrs. Ben to Mr. Ben, as they talked it over later in the evening. "He is not exactly the kind of man I should have supposed Hattie would fancy, and she is rather scatter-brained to begin life as the wife of a college professor. But they love each other, and that is the principal thing."
"Yes, Martha. That is the principal thing. There's no doubt about that. I don't suppose it really makes any difference in the end," Ben added, with a chuckle of ill-disguised fatherly pride, "but, as far as I can make out, Hattie seems to have done most of the courting!"