“I don’t forget you,” said Sam. “Do you remember me? Or is it out of sight out of mind?”
And with this beginning he renewed his suit. She told him that she forgot no one; that she should return always, lest they might forget her.
“Return always!” he exclaimed. “You talk as if your anchor was dragging.”
Was it? At all events, Sam failed in his suit.
Over in the house at Dunbarton, the old lady held Molly’s hand and looked a long while at her. “You have changed very much,” she said finally.
“I am a year older,” said the girl.
“Pshaw, my dear!” said the great-aunt. “Who is he?”
“Nobody!” cried Molly, with indignation.
“Then you shouldn’t answer so loud,” said the great-aunt.
The girl suddenly hid her face. “I don’t believe I can love anyone,” she said, “except myself.”
And then that old lady, who in her day had made her courtesy to Lafayette, began to stroke her niece’s buried head, because she more than half understood. And understanding thus much, she asked no prying questions, but thought of the days of her own youth, and only spoke a little quiet love and confidence to Molly.
“I am an old, old woman,” she said. “But I haven’t forgotten about it. They objected to him because he had no fortune. But he was brave and handsome, and I loved him, my dear. Only I ought to have loved him more. I gave him my promise to think about it. And he and his ship were lost.” The great-aunt’s voice had become very soft and low, and she spoke with many pauses. “So then I knew. If I had—if—perhaps I should have lost him; but it would have been after—ah, well! So long as you can help it, never marry! But when you cannot help it a moment longer, then listen to nothing but that; for, my dear, I know your choice would be worthy of the Starks. And now—let me see his picture.”
“Why, aunty!” said Molly.
“Well, I won’t pretend to be supernatural,” said the aunt, “but I thought you kept one back when you were showing us those Western views last night.”
Now this was the precise truth. Molly had brought a number of photographs from Wyoming to show to her friends at home. These, however, with one exception, were not portraits. They were views of scenery and of cattle roundups, and other scenes characteristic of ranch life. Of young men she had in her possession several photographs, and all but one of these she had left behind her. Her aunt’s penetration had in a way mesmerized the girl; she rose obediently and sought that picture of the Virginian. It was full length, displaying him in all his cowboy trappings—the leathern chaps, the belt and pistol, and in his hand a coil of rope.
Not one of her family had seen it, or suspected its existence. She now brought it downstairs and placed it in her aunt’s hand.
“Mercy!” cried the old lady.
Molly was silent, but her eye grew warlike.
“Is that the way—” began the aunt. “Mercy!” she murmured; and she sat staring at the picture.
Molly remained silent.
Her aunt looked slowly up at her. “Has a man like that presumed—”
“He’s not a bit like that. Yes, he’s exactly like that,” said Molly. And she would have snatched the photograph away, but her aunt retained it.
“Well,” she said, “I suppose there are days when he does not kill people.”
“He never killed anybody!” And Molly laughed.
“Are you seriously—” said the old lady.
“I almost might—at times. He is perfectly splendid.”
“My dear, you have fallen in love with his clothes.”
“It’s not his clothes. And I’m not in love. He often wears others. He wears a white collar like anybody.”
“Then that would be a more suitable way to be photographed, I think. He couldn’t go round like that here. I could not receive him myself.”
“He’d never think of such a thing. Why, you talk as if he were a savage.”
The old lady studied the picture closely for a minute. “I think it is a good face,” she finally remarked. “Is the fellow as handsome as that, my dear?”
More so, Molly thought. And who was he, and what were his prospects? were the aunt’s next inquiries. She shook her head at the answers which she received; and she also shook her head over her niece’s emphatic denial that her heart was lost to this man. But when their parting came, the old lady said:—
“God bless you and keep you, my dear. I’ll not try to manage you. They managed me—” A sigh spoke the rest of this sentence. “But I’m not worried about you—at least, not very much. You have never done anything that was not worthy of the Starks. And if you’re going to take him, do it before I die so that I can bid him welcome for your sake. God bless you, my dear.”
And after the girl had gone back to Bennington, the great-aunt had this thought: “She is like us all. She wants a man that is a man.” Nor did the old lady breathe her knowledge to any member of the family. For she was a loyal spirit, and her girl’s confidence was sacred to her.
“Besides,” she reflected, “if even I can do nothing with her, what a mess they’d make of it! We should hear of her elopement next.”
So Molly’s immediate family never saw that photograph, and never heard a word from her
