The die was cast now. She had taken her first step without Richard's hand to guide her--the first in all her life. It was pain to do it--the more exquisite because she loved to turn to him for guidance or relief, to feel the sense of his protection. Heretofore he had helped her in every domestic emergency, his soft, gentle hand soothing and quieting her, when troubles arose. She had wavered during the night between her duty to her family in saving the farm, and her duty to her husband in preserving unbroken the tie of loyal dependence that had always bound them together. Many emotions had shaken her as she lay awake, her eyes fixed on the flutings in the canopy of the high-post bedstead which the night-lamp faintly illumined, Richard asleep beside her, dreaming doubtless of cogs and pulleys and for the hundredth time of his finding the one connecting link needed to complete the chain of his success.
But before the day had broken, her keen, penetrating mind had cut through the fog of her doubts.
Come what may, the farm should never be given up.
Richard, for all his urgent need of money to perfect his new motor, should not be allowed to sacrifice this the only piece of landed property which they possessed, except the roof that sheltered them all.
The farm saved, she would give her attention to Oliver's future career. On one point her mind was firmly made up--he should never, in spite of what his father said, become a painter.
Oliver hurried through his breakfast, cut short Malachi's second relay of waffles to the great disappointment of that excellent servitor, and with his mother's message for the moment firmly fixed in his mind, tilted his hat on one side of his head and started across Kennedy Square, whistling as he went.
Mrs. Horn moved her seat to the window and looked out upon the brick-paved yard. The door of the shop was shut. Richard was already at work, for a thin curl of blue smoke was rising from the chimney.
As she sat looking out upon the tulip-tree and the ivy-covered wall beyond, a strange, unaccountable sense of loneliness new in her experience came over her. The lines about her mouth settled more firmly, and the anxious look that had filled her eyes changed to one of determination.
"Nobody can help," she said to herself with a sigh.
"I must do it all myself;" and picking up her basket of keys she mounted slowly to her room.
Once outside the front door, with the fresh, clear air stirring to a silver-white the leaves of the maples, the birds singing in the branches and the sky glistening overhead, one of those sudden changes of mood to which our young hero was subject swept over him.
The picture of the dear mother whom he loved and whose anxious face had at last filled his thoughts, by some shifting of the gray matter of this volatile young gentleman's brain had suddenly become replaced by another.
Pretty Sue Clayton, her black eyes snapping with fun, her hand so soon to be outstretched in welcome, was now the dominating figure in his mental horizon.
Even Sir Peter Lely's girl in pink and the woodcock shooting with Tom Pitts, and all the other delights that had filled his brain had become things of the past as he thought of Sue's greeting. For the time being this black-eyed little witch with the ringlets about her face had complete possession of him.
He had not thought of her, it is true, for five consecutive minutes since he had bidden her good-night ten hours ago; and he would, I am quite sure, have forgotten even his promise to see her this morning had not his mother's message made his going to her house imperative. And yet, now that the prospect of having a glimpse of her face was assured, he could hardly wait until he reached her side.
Not that he had some new thing to tell her--something that had bubbled up fresh from the depths of his heart over-night. Indeed, had that portion of this young gentleman's anatomy been searched with a dark lantern, it can safely be said that not the slightest suggestion of this fair inamorata's form or lineaments would have been found lurking in any one of its recesses. Furthermore, I can state positively --and I knew this young gentleman quite well at the time--that it was not Sue at all that he longed for at this precise moment, even though he hurried to meet her. It was more the WOMAN IN HER--the something that satisfied his inner nature when he was with her--her coy touches of confidence, her artless outbursts of admiration, looking up in his face as she spoke, the dimples playing about the corners of her mouth. He revelled in all those subtle flatteries and cajoleries, and in all the arts to please of which she was past mistress. He loved to believe her--she intended that he should--when she told him how different he was from anybody about Kennedy Square, and how nobody swam or rode or danced as he did; nor wore their hair so becomingly, nor their clothes--especially the gray jacket buttoned up close under the chin, not carried themselves as they walked; nor--Why go on? We all know exactly how she said it, and how sincere she seemed, and how we believed it all (and do now, some of us), and how blissful it was to sit beside her and hear her voice and know that this most adorable of women really believed that the very sun itself rose and set in our own adorable persons.
Because of all this and of many other things with which we have nothing to do, our young hero saw only Sue's eyes when that maiden, who had been watching for him at the library window, laid her hand on the lapel of his coat in her coaxing way. No wonder he had forgotten everything which his mother had asked him to do. I can forgive him under the circumstances--and so can you. Soft hands are very beguiling, sometimes--and half-closed lids--Well!
It is a good many years ago, but there are some things that none of us ever forget.
