“Miss Prime!” exclaimed Fred, aghast.
“Miss Prime was my sweetheart, Freddie, thirty years ago, jest like ’Lizabeth is yor’n now. Come along.”
The two set out, Hodges stepping with impatient alacrity, and the boy too astounded to speak.
It was a beautiful morning at the end of June. The sense of spring’s reviving influence had not yet given way to the full languor and sensuousness of summer. The wind was soft and warm and fragrant. The air was full of the song of birds and the low droning of early bees. The river that flowed between the green hills and down through Dexter was like a pane of wrinkled glass, letting light and joy even into the regions below. Over the streets and meadows and hills lay a half haze, like a veil over the too dazzling beauty of an Eastern princess. The hum of business—for in the passing years Dexter had grown busy—the roar of traffic in the streets, all melted into a confused and intoxicating murmur as the pedestrians passed into the residence portion of the town to the cottage where Miss Prime still lived. The garden was as prim as ever, the walks as straight and well kept. The inevitable white curtains were fluttering freshly from the window, over which a huge matrimony vine drooped lazily and rung its pink and white bells to invite the passing bees.
Eliphalet paused at the gate and heaved a deep sigh. So much depended upon the issue of his present visit. The stream of his life had been flowing so smoothly before. Now if its tranquillity were disturbed it never could be stilled again. Did he dare to risk so much upon so hazardous a chance? Were it not better to go back home, back to his old habits and his old ease, without knowing his fate? That would at least leave him the pleasure of speculating. He might delude himself with the hope that some day—He faltered. His hand was on the gate, but his face was turned back towards the way he had come. Should he enter, or should he go back? Fate decided for him, for at this juncture the door opened, and Miss Hester appeared in the doorway and called out, “Do come in, ’Liphalet. What air you a-standin’ out there so long a-studyin’ about, fur all the world like a bashful boy?”
The shot told. He was a bashful boy again, going fearfully, tremblingly, lovingly, to see the girl of his heart; but there was no old Bess to whinny encouragement to him from over the little fence. If he blushed, even the scrutinising eyes of Miss Prime did not see it, for the bronze laid on his face by summers and winters of exposure; but he felt the hot blood rush up to his face and neck, and the perspiration breaking out on his brow. He paused long enough to mop his face, and then, saying to Fred, in a low tone, “You stay in the garden, my boy, until it’s all over,” he opened the gate and entered in the manner of one who leads a forlorn hope through forest aisles where an ambush is suspected. The door closed behind him. Interested, excited, wondering and fearing, doubting and hoping, Fred remained in the garden. There were but two thoughts in his head, and they were so new and large that his poor boy’s cranium had room for no more. They ran in this wise: “Miss Prime is Uncle ’Liphalet’s girl, and Elizabeth is mine.”
Within, Miss Prime was talking on in her usual decided fashion, while the man sat upon the edge of his chair and wondered how he could break in upon the stream of her talk and say what was in his heart. At last the lady exclaimed, “I do declare, ’Liphalet, what kin be the matter with you? You ain’t said ten words sence you’ve been a-settin’ there. I hope you ain’t talked yoreself entirely out with Fred. It does beat all how you an’ that boy seem to grow thicker an’ thicker every day. One ’ud think fur all the world that you told him all yore secrets, an’ was afeared he’d tell ’em, by the way you stick by him; an’ he’s jest as bad about you. It’s amazin’.”
“Freddie’s a wonderful good boy, an’ he’s smart, too. They ain’t none of ’em a-goin’ to throw dust in his eyes in the race of life.”
“I’m shore I’ve tried to do my dooty by him the very best I could, an’ ef he does amount to anything in this world it’ll be through hard labour an’ mighty careful watchin’.” Miss Hester gave a sigh that was meant to be full of solemnity, but that positively reeked with self-satisfaction.
“But as you say, ’Liphalet,” she went on, “Fred ain’t the worst boy in the world, nor the dumbest neither, ef I do say it myself. I ain’t a-sayin’, mind you, that he’s anything so great or wonderful; but I’ve got to thinkin’ that there’s somethin’ in him besides original sin, an’ I should feel that the Lord had been mighty favourin’ to me ef I could manage to draw it out. The fact of it is, ’Liphalet, I’ve took a notion in my head about Fred, an’ I’m a-goin’ to tell you what it is. I’ve decided to make
