Short Fiction

it would be so pleasant to have the opportunity of asking herself whether she could not love him, should he ever give her a fair and open opportunity of searching her own heart on the matter. There had now sprung up some half-quarrel between them, and it was impossible that it could be set aside by any action on her part. She could not be otherwise than cold and haughty in her demeanour to him. Any attempt at reconciliation must come from him, and the longer that she continued to be cold and haughty, the less chance there was that it would come. And yet she knew that she had been right to rebuke him for what he had said. “Christmas a bore!” She would rather lose his friendship forever than hear such words from his mouth, without letting him know what she thought of them. Now he was there with her, and his coming could not but be taken as a sign of repentance. Yet she could not soften her manners to him, and become intimate with him, and playful, as had been her wont. He was allowed to pull about the masses of ivy, and to stick up branches of holly here and there at discretion; but what he did was done under Mabel’s direction, and not under hers⁠—with the aid of one of the farmer’s daughters, and not with her aid. In silence she continued to work round the chancel and communion-table, with Crossgrain, while Archer, Mabel, and David Drum used their taste and diligence in the nave and aisles of the little church. Then Mrs. Lownd came among them, and things went more easily; but hardly a word had been spoken between Isabel and Maurice when, after sundry hints from David Drum as to the lateness of the hour, they left the church and went up to the parsonage for their luncheon.

Isabel stoutly walked on first, as though determined to show that she had no other idea in her head but that of reaching the parsonage as quickly as possible. Perhaps Maurice Archer had the same idea, for he followed her. Then he soon found that he was so far in advance of Mrs. Lownd and the old gardener as to be sure of three minutes’ uninterrupted conversation; for Mabel remained with her mother, making earnest supplication as to the expenditure of certain yards of green silk tape, which she declared to be necessary for the due performance of the work which they had in hand. “Miss Lownd,” said Maurice, “I think you are a little hard upon me.”

“In what way, Mr. Archer?”

“You asked me to come down to the church, and you haven’t spoken to me all the time I was there.”

“I asked you to come and work, not to talk,” she said.

“You asked me to come and work with you.”

“I don’t think that I said any such thing; and you came at Mabel’s request, and not at mine. When I asked you, you told me it was all⁠—a bore. Indeed you said much worse than that. I certainly did not mean to ask you again. Mabel asked you, and you came to oblige her. She talked to you, for I heard her; and I was half disposed to tell her not to laugh so much, and to remember that she was in church.”

“I did not laugh, Miss Lownd.”

“I was not listening especially to you.”

“Confess, now,” he said, after a pause; “don’t you know that you misinterpreted me yesterday, and that you took what I said in a different spirit from my own.”

“No; I do not know it.”

“But you did. I was speaking of the holiday part of Christmas, which consists of pudding and beef, and is surely subject to ridicule, if one chooses to ridicule pudding and beef. You answered me as though I had spoken slightingly of the religious feeling which belongs to the day.”

“You said that the whole thing was⁠—; I won’t repeat the word. Why should pudding and beef be a bore to you, when it is prepared as a sign that there shall be plenty on that day for people who perhaps don’t have plenty on any other day of the year? The meaning of it is, that you don’t like it all, because that which gives unusual enjoyment to poor people, who very seldom have any pleasure, is tedious to you. I don’t like you for feeling it to be tedious. There! that’s the truth. I don’t mean to be uncivil, but⁠—”

“You are very uncivil.”

“What am I to say, when you come and ask me?”

“I do not well know how you could be more uncivil, Miss Lownd. Of course it is the commonest thing in the world, that one person should dislike another. It occurs every day, and people know it of each other. I can perceive very well that you dislike me, and I have no reason to be angry with you for disliking me. You have a right to dislike me, if your mind runs that way. But it is very unusual for one person to tell another so to his face⁠—and more unusual to say so to a guest.” Maurice Archer, as he said this, spoke with a degree of solemnity to which she was not at all accustomed, so that she became frightened at what she had said. And not only was she frightened, but very unhappy also. She did not quite know whether she had or had not told him plainly that she disliked him, but she was quite sure that she had not intended to do so. She had been determined to scold him⁠—to let him see that, however much of real friendship there might be between them, she would speak her mind plainly, if he offended her; but she certainly had not desired to give him cause for lasting wrath against her. “However,” continued Maurice, “perhaps the truth is best after all, though it is so very unusual to hear such truths