Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/500

458 silently. He never made the slightest attempt at explanation.

One night, after supper, Sarah and her mother sat on the front door-step, and by and by the old grandmother came across the fields, and Mrs. Wilford Biggs across the street, and Mr. John Mangam from his own house farther down. He looked preoccupied and worried that night, and while he was as silent as ever, yet his silence had the effect of speech.

They sat in their customary places: Mrs. Lynn and Mrs. Biggs in the chairs on the broad step-stone, Sarah and the old woman on the step, and Mr. John Mangam in his chair on the gravel path,—when a strange lady came stepping across the hedge from the Ware garden. She was not so very young, although she was undeniably very handsome, and her clothes were of a fashion never seen in Adams. She went straight up to the group on the door-step, and although she had too much poise of manner to appear agitated, it was evident that she was very eager and very much in earnest. Mrs. Lynn half arose, with an idea of giving her a chair, but there was no time, the lady began talking so at once.

"You are Miss Sarah Lynn, are you not?" she asked of Sarah, and she did not wait for a reply, "and you are going to be married to him?" and there was an unmistakable emphasis of scorn in her rendering of the pronoun.

"I have just returned," said the lady; "I have not been in the house half an hour, and my father told me. You do not know, but the gentleman who has lived so long in the Ware house, the caretaker, is my father, and—and my mother was Hyacinthus's mother; her second marriage was secret, and he would never tell. My father and my mother were cousins. Hyacinthus never told." She turned to Sarah. "He would not even tell you, when he knew that you must have seen or heard something that made you believe otherwise, because—because of our mother. No, he would not even tell you."

She spoke again with a great impetuosity which made her seem very young, although she was not so very young. "I have been kept away all my life," she said, "all my life from here, that the memory of our mother should not suffer, and now I come to tell, myself, and you will marry my brother, whom you must love better than that gentleman. You must. Will you not? Tell me that you will," said she, "for Hyacinthus is breaking his heart, and he loves you."

Before anything further could be said John Mangam rose, and walked rapidly down the gravel walk out of the yard and down the street.

Sarah felt dizzy. She bent lower as she sat and held her head in her two hands, and the strange lady came on the other side of her, and she was enveloped in a fragrance of some foreign perfume.

"My brother has been almost mad," she whispered in her ear, "and I have just found out what the trouble was. He would not tell on account of our mother, but poor mother is dead and gone."

Then the old woman on the other side raised her voice unexpectedly, and she spoke to her granddaughter, Mrs. Lynn. "You are a fool," said she, "if you wouldn't rather hev Serrah merry a man like Hyacinthus Ware, with all his money and livin' in the biggest house in Adams, than a man like John Mangam, who sets an' sets an' sets the hull evenin' and never opens his mouth to say boo to a goose, and beside bein' threatened with a suit for breach."

"I don't care who she marries, as long as she is happy," said Sarah's mother, with a sob.

"Well, I'm goin'," said the old woman. "I left my winders open, and I think there's a shower comin' up."

She rose, and Mrs. Wilford Biggs at the same time. Sarah's mother went into the house.

"Won't you?" whispered the strange lady, and it was as if a rose whispered in Sarah's ear.

"I didn't know that he—I thought—" stammered Sarah.

Sarah did not exactly know when the lady left and when Hyacinthus came, but after a while they were sitting side by side on the door-step, and the moon was rising over the mountain, and the wonderful shadows were gathering about them like a company of wedding-guests.