Janice Meredith Part 13

One of her tormenting factors was not to be so treated.

Philemon alone made nothing of the change of season, riding the nine miles between his home and Greenwood by daylight or by moonlight, as if his feeling for the girl not merely warmed but lighted the devious path between the drifts. Yet it was not to make love he came; for he sat a silent, awkward figure when once within doors, speaking readily enough in response to the elders, but practically inarticulate whenever called upon to reply to Janice. Her bland unconsciousness was a barrier far worse than the snow; and never dreaming that he was momentarily declaring his love for her in a manner far stronger than words, he believed her wholly ignorant of what he felt, and stayed for hours at a time, longing helplessly for a turn of events which should make it possible for him to speak.

Philemon was thus engaged or disengaged one December morning when Peg entered the parlour where the family were sitting as close to the fire as the intense glow of the hickory embers would allow, and handing Janice a letter with an air of some importance, remarked, "Charles he ask me give you dat." Then, colonial servants being p.r.o.ne to familiarity, and negro slaves doubly so, Peg rested her weight on one foot, and waited to learn what this unusual event might portend.

All present instantly fixed their eyes upon Janice, but had they not done so it is probable that she would have coloured much as she did, for the girl was enough interested and enough frightened to be quite unconscious of the eyes upon her.

"A letter for thee, la.s.s!" exclaimed the squire. "Let 's have the bowels of it."

The necessity for that very thing was what made the occurrence so alarming to Janice, for her woman's intuition had at once suggested, the moment she had seen the bold hand-writing of the superscription, that it could be from none other than Evatt, and she had as quickly surmised that her father and mother would insist upon sight of the missive. Unaware of what it might contain, she sat with red cheeks, not daring to break the seal.

"Hast got the jingle brains, child?" asked her mother, sharply, "that thou dost nothing but stare at it?"

Janice laid the letter in her lap, saying, "'T will wait till I finish this row." It was certainly a hard fate which forced her to delay the opening of the first letter she had ever received.

"'T will nothing of the sort," said her mother, reaching out for the paper. "Art minded to read it on the sly, miss?

There shall be no letters read by stealth. Give it me."

"Oh, mommy," begged the girl, desperately, "I'll show it to you, but--oh--let me read it first, oh, please!"

"I think 't is best not," replied her mother. "Thy anxiety has an ill look to it, Janice."

The girl handed the letter dutifully, and with an anxious attention watched her mother break it open, all pleasure in the novelty of the occurrence quite overtopped by dread of what was to come.

"What nonsense is this?" was Mrs. Meredith's anything but encouraging exclamation. Then she read out--

"'T is unworthy of you, and of your acceptance, but 't is the fairest gift I could think of, and the best that I could do. If you will but put it in the frame you have, it may seem more befitting a token of the feelings that inspired it."

Janice, unable to restrain her curiosity, rose and peered over her mother's shoulder. From that vantage point she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "Oh, how beautiful she is!"

What she looked at was an unset miniature of a young girl, with a wealth of darkest brown hair, powdered to a gray, and a little straight nose with just a suggestion of a tilt to it, giving the mignon face an expression of pride that the rest of the countenance by no means aided. For the remaining features, the mouth was still that of a child, the short upper lip projecting markedly over the nether one, producing not so much a pouty look as one of innocence; the eyes were brilliant black, or at least were shadowed to look it by the long lashes, and the black eyebrows were slender and delicately arched upon a low forehead.

"Art a nizey, Janice," cried her mother, "not to know thine own face?"

"Mommy!" exclaimed the girl. "Is--am I as pretty as that?"

"'T is vastly flattered," said her mother, quickly. "I should scarce know it."

"Nay, Matilda," dissented the squire, who was now also gazing at the miniature. "'T is a good phiz of our la.s.s, and but does her justice. Who ever sent it ye, Jan?"

"I suppose 't was Mr. Evatt," confessed Janice.

"Let's have sight of the wrapper," said the father. "Nay, Jan. This has been in no post-rider's bag or 't would bear the marks."

"Peg, tell Charles to come here," ordered Mrs. Meredith, and after a five minutes spent by the group in various surmises, the bond-servant, followed by the still attentive Peg, entered the room.

"Didst find this letter at the tavern?" demanded the squire.

The groom looked at the wrapper held out to him, and replied, "Mayhaps."

"And what took ye there against my orders?"

Charles shrugged his shoulders, and then smiled. "Ask Hennion," he said.

"What means he, Phil?" questioned the squire.

"Now you've been an' told the whole thing," exclaimed Philemon, looking very much alarmed.

"Not I," replied the servant. "'T is for you to tell it, man, if 't is to be told."

"Have done with such mingle-mangle talk," ordered Mr.

Meredith, fretfully. "Is 't not enough to have French gibberish in the world, without--"

"Charles," interrupted Mrs. Meredith, "who gave thee this letter?"

"Ask Miss Meredith," Fownes responded, again smiling.

"It must be Mr. Evatt," said Janice. Then as the bond-servant turned sharply and looked at her, she became conscious that she was colouring. "I wish there was no such thing as a blush," she moaned to herself,--a wish in which no one seeing Miss Meredith would have joined.

"'T was not from Mr. Evatt," denied the servant.

Without time for thought, Janice blurted out, "Then 't is from you?" and the groom nodded his head.

"What nonsense is this?" cried Mr. Meredith. "Dost mean to say 't is from ye? Whence came the picture?"

"I was the limner," replied Charles.

"What clanker have we here?" exclaimed the squire.

"'T is no lie, Mr. Meredith," answered the servant. "In England I've drawn many a face, and 't was even said in jest that I might be a poor devil of an artist if ever I quitted the ser--quitted service."

"And where got ye the colours?"

"When I went to Princeton with the shoats I found Mr.

Peale painting Dr. Witherspoon, and he gave me the paints and the ivory."

"Ye'll say I suppose too that ye wrote this," demanded the squire, indicating the letter.

"I'll not deny it."

"Though ye could not sign the covenant?"

Fownes once more shrugged his shoulders. "'T is a fool would sign a bond," he a.s.serted.

"Better a fool than a knave," retorted Mr. Meredith, angered by Charles' manner. "Janice, give the rogue back the letter and picture. No daughter of Lambert Meredith accepts gifts from her father's bond-servants."

The man flushed, while evidently struggling to control his temper, and Janice, both in pity for him, as well as in desire for possession of the picture, for gifts were rare indeed in those days, begged--

"Oh, dadda, mayn't I keep it?"

"Mr. Meredith," said Charles, speaking with evident repression, "the present was given only with the respect--"