Short Fiction

Anybody but you for my wife is a thing unthinkable. God would never degrade me to any choice of my mother’s! He knows you for the very best woman I shall ever have the chance of marrying. Shall I tell you the sort of woman my mother would like me to marry? Oh, I know the sort! First, she must be tall and handsome, with red, fashionable hair, and cool, offhand manners. She must never look shy or put out, or as if she did not know what to say. On the contrary, she must know who’s who, and what’s what, and never wear a dowdy bonnet, but always a stunning hat. And she must have a father who can give her something handsome when she is married. That’s my mother’s girl for me. I can’t bear to look such a girl in the face! She makes me ashamed of myself and of her. The sort I want is one that grows prettier and prettier the more you love and trust her, and always looks best when she is busiest doing something for somebody. Yes, she has black hair, black as the night; and you see the whiteness of her face in the darkest night. And her eyes, they are blue, oh, as blue as bits of the very sky at midnight! and they shine and flash so⁠—just like yours, and nobody else’s, my darling.”

But here they heard footsteps on the stair⁠—those of Mrs. Macintosh, hurrying up to surprise them. They guessed that her husband had just left her, and that she was in a wild fury; simultaneously they rose and fled. Hector would have led the way quietly out by the front door; but Annie turning the other way to pass through the kitchen, Hector at once turned and followed her. But he had hardly got up with her before she was safe in her mother’s house, and the door shut behind them. There Hector bade her goodnight, and, hastening home, found all the lights out, and heard his father and mother talking in their own room; but what they said he never knew.

The next morning Annie had hardly done dressing when she heard a knock at the street-door.

“That’ll be Hector, mother,” she said. “I’m thinking he’ll be come to have a word with you.”

“Annie!” exclaimed her mother, in rebuke of the liberty she took. “But if you mean young Mr. Macintosh, what on earth can he want with me?”

“Bide a minute, mother,” answered Annie, “and he’ll tell you himself.”

So Mrs. Melville went to the door and opened it to the young man, who stood there shy and expectant.

“Mrs. Melville,” he said, “I have come to tell you that I love your Annie, and want to make her my Annie as well. I am more sorry than I can tell you to confess that I am not able to marry at once, but please wait a little while for me. I shall do my best to take you both home with me as soon as possible.”

She looked for a moment silently in his face, then, throwing her arms round his neck, answered:

“And I wonder who wouldn’t be glad to wait for your sweet face to the very Day of Judgment, sir, when all must have their own at last.”

Therewith she burst into tears, and, turning, led the way to the parlor.

“Here’s your Hector, Annie,” she said as she opened the door. “Take him, and make much of him, for I’m sure he deserves it.”

Then she drew him hastily into the room, and closed the door.

“You see,” Hector went on, “I must let you both know that my mother is dead against my having Annie. She thinks, of course, that I might do better; but I know she is only far too good for me, and that I shall be a fortunate as well as happy man the day we come together. She has already proved herself as true a woman as ever God made.”

“She is that, sir, as I know and can testify, who have known her longer than anybody else. But sit you down and love each other, and never mind me; I’ll not be a burden to you as long as I can lift a hand to earn my own bread. And when I’m old and past work, I’ll not be too proud to take whatever you can spare me, and eat it with thankfulness.”

So they sat down, and were soon making merry together.

But nothing could reconcile Mrs. Macintosh to the thought of Annie for her daughter-in-law; her pride, indignation, and disappointment were much too great, and they showed themselves the worse that her husband would not say a word against either Annie or Hector, who, he insisted, had behaved very well. He would not go a step beyond confessing that the thing was not altogether as he could have wished, but upheld that it contained ground for satisfaction. In vain he called to his wife’s mind the fact that neither she nor he were by birth or early position so immeasurably above Annie. Nothing was of any use to calm her; nothing would persuade her that Annie had not sought their service with the express purpose of carrying away her son. Her behavior proved, indeed, that Annie had done prudently in going at once home to her mother, where presently her late mistress sought and found her; acting royally the part of one righteously outraged in her dearest dignity. Her worst enemy could have desired for her nothing more degrading than to see and hear her. She insisted that Hector should abjure Annie, or leave the house. Hector laid the matter before his father. He encouraged him to humor his mother as much as he could, and linger on, not going every night to see the girl, in the hope that time might work some change. But the time passed in bitter reproaches on the part of the mother, and expostulations on the part of the