The Bostonians, Vol. II

'Well, I'm glad you have come to see Olive now.'

'You remember that I wouldn't do that when I met you last?'

'You asked me not to mention to her that I had met you; that's what I principally recall.'

'And don't you remember what I told you I wanted to do? I wanted to go out to Cambridge and see Miss Tarrant. Thanks to the information that you were so good as to give me, I was able to do so.'

'Yes, she gave me quite a little description of your visit,' said Miss Birdseye, with a smile and a vague sound in her throat—a sort of pensive, private reference to the idea of laughter—of which Ransom never learned the exact significance, though he retained for a long time afterwards a kindly memory of the old lady's manner at the moment.

'I don't know how much she enjoyed it, but it was an immense pleasure to me; so great a one that, as you see, I have come to call upon her again.'

'Then, I presume, she has shaken you?'

'She has shaken me tremendously!' said Ransom, laughing.

'Well, you'll be a great addition,' Miss Birdseye returned. 'And this time your visit is also for Miss Chancellor?'

'That depends on whether she will receive me.'

'Well, if she knows you are shaken, that will go a great way,' said Miss Birdseye, a little musingly, as if even to her unsophisticated mind it had been manifested that one's relations with Miss Chancellor might be ticklish. 'But she can't receive you now—can she?—because she's out. She has gone to the post office for the Boston letters, and they get so many every day that she had to take Verena with her to help her carry them home. One of them wanted to stay with me, because Doctor Prance has gone fishing, but I said I presumed I could be left alone for about seven minutes. I know how they love to be together; it seems as if one couldn't go out without the other. That's what they came down here for, because it's quiet, and it didn't look as if there was any one else they would be much drawn to. So it would be a pity for me to come down after them just to spoil it!'

'I am afraid I shall spoil it, Miss Birdseye.'

'Oh, well, a gentleman,' murmured the ancient woman.

'Yes, what can you expect of a gentleman? I certainly shall spoil it if I can.'

'You had better go fishing with Doctor Prance,' said Miss Birdseye, with a serenity which showed that she was far from measuring the sinister quality of the announcement he had just made.

'I shan't object to that at all. The days here must be very long—very full of hours. Have you got the doctor with you?' Ransom inquired, as if he knew nothing at all about her.

'Yes, Miss Chancellor invited us both; she is very thoughtful. She is not merely a theoretic philanthropist—she goes into details,' said Miss Birdseye, presenting her large person, in her chair, as if she herself were only an item. 'It seems as if we were not so much wanted in Boston, just in August.'

'And here you sit and enjoy the breeze, and admire the view,' the young man remarked, wondering when the two messengers, whose seven minutes must long since have expired, would return from the post office.

'Yes, I enjoy everything in this little old-world place; I didn't suppose I should be satisfied to be so passive. It's a great contrast to my former exertions. But somehow it doesn't seem as if there were any trouble, or any wrong round here; and if there should be, there are Miss Chancellor and Miss Tarrant to look after it. They seem to think I had better fold my hands. Besides, when helpful, generous minds begin to flock in from your part of the country,' Miss Birdseye continued, looking at him from under the distorted and discoloured canopy of her hat with a benignity which completed the idea in any cheerful sense he chose.

He felt by this time that he was committed to rather a dishonest part; he was pledged not to give a shock to her optimism. This might cost him, in the coming days, a good deal of dissimulation, but he was now saved from any further expenditure of ingenuity by certain warning sounds which admonished him that he must keep his wits about him for a purpose more urgent. There were voices in the hall of the house, voices he knew, which came nearer, quickly; so that before he had time to rise one of the speakers had come out with the exclamation—'Dear Miss Birdseye, here are seven letters for you!' The words fell to the ground, indeed, before they were fairly spoken, and when Ransom got up, turning, he saw Olive Chancellor standing there, with the parcel from the post office in her hand. She stared at him in sudden horror; for the moment her self-possession completely deserted her. There was so little of any greeting in her face save the greeting of dismay, that he felt there was nothing for him to say to her, nothing that could mitigate the odious fact of his being there. He could only let her take it in, let her divine that, this time, he was not to be got rid of. In an instant—to ease off the situation—he held out his hand for Miss Birdseye's letters, and it was a proof of Olive's having turned rather faint and weak that she gave them up to him. He delivered the packet to the old lady, and now Verena had appeared in the doorway of the house. As soon as she saw him, she blushed crimson; but she did not, like Olive, stand voiceless.

'Why, Mr. Ransom,' she cried out, 'where in the world were you washed ashore?' Miss Birdseye, meanwhile, taking her letters, had no appearance of observing that the encounter between Olive and her visitor was a kind of concussion.

It was Verena who eased off the situation; her gay challenge rose to her lips as promptly as if she had had no cause for embarrassment. She was not confused even when she blushed, and her alertness may perhaps be explained by the habit of public speaking. Ransom smiled at her while she came forward, but he spoke first to Olive, who had already turned her eyes away from him and gazed at the blue sea-view as if she were wondering what was going to happen to her at last.

'Of course you are very much surprised to see me; but I hope to be able to induce you to regard me not absolutely in the light of an intruder. I found your door open, and I walked in, and Miss Birdseye seemed to think I might stay. Miss Birdseye, I put myself under your protection; I invoke you; I appeal to you,' the young man went on. 'Adopt me, answer for me, cover me with the mantle of your charity!'

Miss Birdseye looked up from her letters, as if at first she had only faintly heard his appeal. She turned her eyes from Olive to Verena; then she said, 'Doesn't it seem as if we had room for all? When I remember what I have seen in the South, Mr. Ransom's being here strikes me as a great triumph.'

Olive evidently failed to understand, and Verena broke in with eagerness, 'It was by my letter, of course, that you knew we were here. The one I wrote just before we came, Olive,' she went on. 'Don't you remember I showed