Page:The Small House at Allington Vol 2.djvu/106

90 "Ah! mine never ran very high. I've always had a sort of aptitude for living in a pigsty;—a clean pigsty, you know, with nice fresh bean straw to lie upon. I think it was a mistake when they made a lady of me. I do, indeed."

"I do not," said Dr. Crofts.

"That's because you don't quite know me yet. I've not the slightest pleasure in putting on three different dresses a day. I do it very often because it comes to me to do it, from the way in which we have been taught to live. But when we get to Guestwick I mean to change all that; and if you come in to tea, you'll see me in the same brown frock that I wear in the morning,—unless, indeed, the morning work makes the brown frock dirty. Oh, Dr. Crofts! you'll have it pitch-dark riding home under the Guestwick elms."

"I don't mind the dark," he said; and it seemed as though he hardly intended to go even yet.

"But I do," said Bell, "and I shall ring for candles." But he stopped her as she put her hand out to the bell-pull.

"Stop a moment, Bell. You need hardly have the candles before I go, and you need not begrudge my staying either, seeing that I shall be all alone at home."

"Begrudge your staying!"

"But, however, you shall begrudge it, or else make me very welcome." He still held her by the wrist, which he had caught as he prevented her from summoning the servant.

"What do you mean?" said she. "You know you are welcome to us as flowers in May. You always were welcome; but now, when you have come to us in our trouble At any rate, you shall never say that I turn you out."

"Shall I never say so?" And still he held her by the wrist. He had kept his chair throughout, but she was standing before him,—between him and the fire. But she, though he held her in this way, thought little of his words, or of his action. They had known each other with great intimacy, and though Lily would still laugh at her, saying that Dr. Crofts was her lover, she had long since taught herself that no such feeling as that would ever exist between them.

"Shall I never say so, Bell? What if so poor a man as I ask for the hand that you will not give to so rich a man as your cousin Bernard?"

She instantly withdrew her arm and moved back very quickly a