Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/754

726 and manifest liking for him were a more flattering tribute to his vanity than was Jessie's frank friendliness. I think it is always thus with the tokens of favor vouchsafed by reserved, self-concentrated women. While Jessie was his especial "study" (or quarry) just now, he did not disdain the goods the gods offered him in the esteem and good-will of the handsome elder. He had found her eminently convenient when his motive was to pique and mystify his cousin's affianced by a feint of haughty indifference; and he was too wise an economist to cast aside what he had then gained. He would be a poor diplomatist, indeed, if he were to prove himself incompetent to the management of two affairs at the same time.

The setting sun burnished Windbeam's coronal of cedars into golden-green; but the valley was in shadow when he undid the parsonage gate. Eunice's pet evergreens redeemed the garden from desolation. A trim arbor-vitae hedge kept warm the southern border, that would be gay in March with crocuses and tulips; the box-trees were the only leafy things in the alley, down which Jessie had crept to faint in his arms at the other end. A thrifty holly, beaded with scarlet, mounted guard at the left of the front steps, as did a cedar, covered with bluish white berries, at the right.

Patsey, the good-natured but clumsy servant-girl, opened the door and welcomed Mr. Wyllys with a bashful grin.

"Mr. Kirke and Miss Eunice is not at home, sir. Miss Jessie is, though. I'll tell her you are here."

He heard swift feet skim the floor overhead as his name was reported, and Jessie was in the room before he could pull off his gloves. With a wild, scared face, lips that moved without sound, and eyes that demanded confirmation or denial of the dread that was strangling her heart, she caught his hands and looked dumbly up at him. His smile broke the spell sooner and more effectually than words could do. She wrested her hands from him, with a laugh so burdened with shame and happiness as to be more like a sob, testifying what had been the pressure and what was the release.

"I was sure—"

"That I was the bearer of bad news from abroad. I understand!" Orrin took up the broken sentence. "You were never more mistaken. Your letter and Mrs. Baxter's brought me. Your fears must take counsel of hope and faith another time. Roy was well when last heard from—well and happy, and, you may be sure, very busy. But what is this?"—leading her to the window and scrutinizing her with fond solicitude. "What have you done with the roses and diamonds you were to preserve fresh and bright while he was away? I am afraid he keeps his pledge of health and contentment better than you do yours to him. Are you not well?"

Her complexion was dead to sallowness; her eyes were leaden, the lids drooping heavily, and she was thinner in face and figure than when he parted from her in August.

"I am not sick. I have no physical ailment whatever beyond a sensation of general good-for-nothingness. I ought to be ashamed to confess it, but I imagine I have a touch of what fine ladies call the 'blues.' Father would have in Dr. Winters, a month ago, in spite of all I could do and say. He laughed at me a little, scolded me a great deal, and pronounced my malady dyspepsia, or nervousness, he was not certain which. In either case, his prescription was dumb bells and porter, ale, or lager beer. Think of it!" (with a grimace). "I