Page:The New Penelope.djvu/184



"I do not ask you to wait, Mr. Rumway," said Mrs. Smiley, tormentingly. "Your house need not be long without a mistress."

"Of course, I must wait, if you give me the least ground of hope. This place was made for you, and no other woman shall ever come into it as my wife—that I swear. If you will not have me, I will sell it, and live a bachelor."

Mrs. Smiley laughed softly and tunefully. "Perhaps you would prefer to limit your endurance, and tell me how long you will allow me to deliberate before you sell and retire to bachelorhood?"

"You know very well," he returned, ruefully, "that I shall always be hoping against all reason that the wished-for answer was coming at last."

"Then we will say no more about it at present."

"And I may come occasionally to learn whether that 'something' has been decided?"

"Yes, if you have the patience for it. But, I warn you, there is a chance of my having to say 'No.'"

"If there is only a chance of your having to say 'No,' I think I may incur the risk," said Rumway, with a sudden accession of hopefulness; and, as they walked home together once more, the gossips pronounced it an engagement. The Captain himself felt that it was, although, when he reviewed the conversation, he discovered that he founded his impression upon that one glance of the gray eyes, rather than upon anything that had been said. And Mrs. Smiley put the matter out of mind as much as possible, and waited.

One day, about the last of the month, a letter came to her from over the mountains. It ran in this wise:

"My Lovely Lady: I am once more among the familyar seanes of 40 year ago. My son is hear, an' about as I expected. I had rather be back at Clatsop, with the old bote; but, owin' to circumstances I can't controll, think it better to end my dais on this side ov the mountains. You need