Page:The Galaxy, Volume 6.djvu/536

502 "God always gives us light enough for the next step!" His was plain—to mitigate the rigors of her fate by such kindly deeds as a brother might perform for the promotion of a sister's welfare, by abstaining from even such manifestations of affection as are a brother's right. There should be no formal explanation until she had recovered from the fatigue of her journey, and begun to feel at home in her new abode. Thus much he could and would do, and await the result.

He did not invite her to inspect his devices for her comfort and enjoyment until the evening meal was dispatched. The survey was a quiet progress for the most part. Roy said little, and Jessie felt awkward. But when they reached the sitting-room, the feelings that had gathered to oppression upon her heart, overflowed her eyes and choked her articulation.

"This is too much!" she exclaimed, catching Roy's hand in hers, and looking tearfully into his face. "O, what am I—"

She could say no more.

"The mistress of this room and this house!" responded Roy in gentle seriousness. "One who has a right to expect every attention I can bestow. This is your sanctum. Nobody shall enter it without your permission."

"Excepting yourself!"

Jessie tried to smile playfully.

"When you want me, I shall come!" was the evasive reply.

"Surely you will not wait—" she was remonstrating, when an agitated tap at the door signalled Mrs. Baxter's impetuous entrance.

"My sweetest lamb!" she cried, with a strangled sob, clasping her cousin in her embrace.

"The doctor would come the instant he had swallowed his tea!" she tried to cover Jessie's emotion and her own by saying, when she could speak clearly. "I told him it was barbarously unfeeling and unromantic that, according to all rules of etiquette and sentiment, you should pass this evening without company. But he was obstinate. I don't believe you two have the remotest conception of his favoritism for you."

Meantime, the doctor had, in his odd fashion, slipped his hand under the young wife's chin, and raised to the light a strangely-agitated face, eyes swimming in tears, forehead slightly puckered with the effort after self-control, and little eddies of smiles breaking around the mouth. Roy saw in it the whole history of the shipwreck of her heart and life, and her womanly determination to keep the knowledge of the disaster to herself. Would the physiognomist's keenly-solemn gaze detect as much?

Neither of the lately-wedded pair was prepared for the remark with which he released the blushing Jessie.

"I wanted to see if the heart of her husband could safely trust in her. My child! do you know what a good man you have married?"

"Do not raise her expectations to an unreasonable height, my dear sir," interposed Roy, in time to forestall her reply. "And let me thank you, in her name and in mine, for the honor you have done us in this early visit."

The doctor accepted the compliment, and the chair the host wheeled forward, in profound silence. The conversation had been carried on by the others for several minutes before he again joined in. He was aroused then by his wife's laudations of Orrin's generosity as displayed in his bridal present.

"I don't see how you can take it so quietly!" she berated the recipient.