But Walter was not at the table, and Ralph had so much anxiety lest his absence should be significant of evil, that he did not venture to inquire after him as he sat there between Mr. and Mrs. White disposing of Aunt Matilda’s cakes with an appetite only justified by his long morning’s ride and the excellence of the brown cakes, the golden honey, and the coffee, enriched, as Aunt Matilda’s always was, with the most generous cream. Aunt Matilda was so absorbed in telling of the doings of the Dorcas Society that she entirely forgot to be surprised at the early hour of Ralph’s arrival. When she had described the number of the garments finished to be sent to the Five Points Mission, or the Home for the Friendless, or the South Sea Islands, I forget which, Ralph thought he saw his chance, while Aunt Matilda was in a benevolent mood, to broach a plan he had been revolving for some time. But when he looked at Aunt Matilda’s immaculate—horribly immaculate—housekeeping, his heart failed him, and he would have said nothing had she not inadvertently opened the door herself.
“How did you get here so early, Ralph?” and Aunt Matilda’s face was shadowed with a coming rebuke.
“By early rising,” said Ralph. But, seeing the gathering frown on his aunt’s brow, he hastened to tell the story of Shocky as well as he could. Mrs. White did not give way to any impulse toward sympathy until she learned that Shocky was safely housed with Miss Nancy Sawyer.
“Yes, Sister Sawyer has no family cares,” she said by way of smoothing her slightly ruffled complacency, “she has no family cares, and she can do those things. Sometimes I think she lets people impose on her and keep her away from the means of grace, and I spoke to our new preacher about it the last time he was here, and asked him to speak to Sister Sawyer about staying away from the ordinances to wait on everybody, but he is a queer man, and he only said that he supposed Sister Sawyer neglected the inferior ordinances that she might attend to higher ones. But I don’t see any sense in a minister of the gospel calling prayer-meeting a lower ordinance than feeding catnip-tea to Mrs. Brown’s last baby. But hasn’t this little boy—Shocking, or what do you call him?—got any mother?”
“Yes,” said Ralph, “and that was just what I was going to say.” And he proceeded to tell how anxious Shocky was to see his half-blind mother, and actually ventured to wind up his remarks by suggesting that Shocky’s mother be invited to stay over Sunday in Aunt Matilda’s house.
“Bless my stars!” said that astounded saint, “fetch a pauper here? What crazy notions you have got! Fetch her here out of the poorhouse? Why, she wouldn’t be fit to sleep in my—” here Aunt Matilda choked. The bare thought of having a pauper in her billowy beds, whose snowy whiteness was frightful to any ordinary mortal, the bare thought of the contagion of the poorhouse taking possession of one of her beds, smothered her. “And then you know sore eyes are very catching.”
Ralph boiled a little. “Aunt Matilda, do you think Dorcas was afraid of sore eyes?”
It was a center shot, and the lawyer-uncle, lawyerlike, enjoyed a good hit. And he enjoyed a good hit at his wife best of all, for he never ventured on one himself. But Aunt Matilda felt that a direct reply was impossible. She was not a lawyer but a woman, and so dodged the question by making a countercharge.
“It seems to me, Ralph, that you have picked up some very low associates. And you go around at night, I am told. You get over here by daylight, and I hear that you have made common cause with a lame soldier who acts as a spy for thieves, and that your running about of night is likely to get you into trouble.”
Ralph was hit this time. “I suppose,” he said, “that you’ve been listening to some of Henry Small’s lies.”
“Why, Ralph, how you talk! The worst sign of all is that you abuse such a young man as Dr. Small, the most exemplary Christian young man in the county. And he is a great friend of yours, for when he was here last week he did not say a word against you, but looked so sorry when your being in trouble was mentioned. Didn’t he, Mr. White?”
Mr. White, as in duty bound, said yes, but he said yes in a cool, lawyerlike way, which showed that he did not take quite so much stock in Dr. Small as his wife did. This was a comfort to Ralph, who sat picturing to himself the silent flattery which Dr. Small’s eyes paid to his Aunt Matilda, and the quiet expression of pain that would flit across his face when Ralph’s name was mentioned. And never until that moment had Hartsook understood how masterful Small’s artifices were. He had managed to elevate himself in Mrs. White’s estimation and to destroy Ralph at the same time, and had managed to do both by a contraction of the eyebrows!
But the silence was growing painful and Ralph thought to break it and turn the current of talk from himself by asking after Mrs. White’s son.
“Where is Walter?”
“Oh! Walter’s doing well. He went down to Clifty three weeks ago to study medicine with Henry Small. He seems so fond of the doctor, and the doctor is such an excellent man, you know, and I have strong hopes that Wallie will be led to see the error of his ways by his association with Henry. I suppose he would have gone to see you but for the unfavorable reports
