Lady Betty Across the Water Part 37

"I couldn't have made more than one, at least I hope not," said I, flippantly. "I could _never_ have married anyone but you, so I should have had to be an old maid if you hadn't asked me, and think how awful that would have been. You _don't_ regret asking me, do you?"

"Regret? Well--it doesn't bear talking of. I suppose I ought to be able to say that I'd meant to keep my love to myself, and it only sprang out on an ungovernable impulse. But it wouldn't be true if I did. I always meant to ask you, from the very first--though I had little enough hope, even up to to-day, that it would be anything more than friendship on your part. But oh, how hard I did mean to try for you. My one virtue was to wait until you had seen enough of other men--men of a different sort--for you to be sure you didn't prefer one of them. And when accident had put you very near me, I did manage not to lose my head and speak, while you were, in a way, under my protection, for that would have been brutal. But Heaven knows--and Miss Woodburn knows--that I came mighty near it once or twice. I'm thankful I didn't. Now you know the best and worst of the other sort of man, and the best and worst of me. You see the kind of people whose blood runs in my veins, and still you are ready to say that my people shall be your people. I'm not afraid of anything that can happen now."

"You needn't be," I said, slipping my other hand into his--for he had one of them already. "Mother may be vexed with me for going against her wishes, but she will have to forgive me--or even if she doesn't, I shall have you."

"I think she will forgive you, darling," said Jim. "I will make her forgive you."

"I believe you could make anybody do anything!" I cried. "Sally will be glad about this, I know. I can see now that she must always have hoped for it to happen, though I didn't realise what she meant at the time.

But we had _such_ a talk in the Park the day we met you, about marrying for love. And she advised me that it was the only thing to do. Oh, I am sorry for everybody who isn't in love, aren't you? And that reminds me, I must try and make dear little Patty in love with Mr. Walker. You'll help me, won't you?"

The rest of the day was perfectly divine, and it is almost as delightful to live it over again as I am doing now, in writing the story of it, after we have said good-night.

We forgot all about going back to the house, until some one came out and rang the bell for tea in the field, where we couldn't help hearing.

Then we told the cousins our news, and they were immensely pleased.

They seemed to think that Jim and I were made for each other, and Mrs.

Trowbridge said she had seen that it was coming, all along.

After tea we walked over to call on Sally, and she was just as glad as I thought she would be.

"You are going to marry one of the finest fellows on earth, I believe,"

said she, "and I congratulate you as well as him."

I do love Sally!

XX

ABOUT JIM AND THE DUKE

It was a very different waking up the next day. My first thought was: "Can it be really true or is it only a dream that I'm engaged to Jim?"

And I almost cried for joy when I was quite sure it was true.

We both wrote letters to my mother, and so did Sally. I didn't see theirs, but I could guess what they said, and I could trust Sally to praise Jim. Still, all the praises in the world wouldn't reconcile Mother to what I was going to do. I could hear her saying: "Who _is_ he?" And I was sure she would add, "How much has he got?" But whatever happened, we were not going to give each other up.

Jim had promised Mr. Trowbridge to p.r.o.nounce judgment on a horse which he thought of buying, and the man who wanted to sell the creature brought it to the farm about eleven o'clock. Sally had come, to tell about the letter she had just posted to Mother, and Jim was in the sitting room writing his. I think he had forgotten about the horse, until Mr. Trowbridge appeared, looking rather excited.

"Say, Jim," he exclaimed, "Jake Jacobsen's here with the horse. He's round by the barn now, and you might as well have a look at it; but it's an awful brute, and I ain't going to take it, at any price."

"What's the matter with the horse?" asked Jim, sealing up his letter, and looking interested.

"It's mad crazy, that's all; but it's enough for me. I thought there must be something wrong for Jake to be offering it at the price he did.

He led it here, and you just ought to have seen the brute dance and make ugly eyes when first Albert and then I tried to get astride of it.

Jake swears the only reason he'll sell cheap is because his wife has taken a dislike to the horse, and what she says, goes with him. He's ready to bet anything the animal's as mild as a lamb, only a bit frisky, and certainly it's as handsome a beast as I ever laid eyes on.

But he'll have to get rid of it at the fair."

"I'll come," said Jim, getting up.

I jumped up too.

"Oh, please don't have anything to do with such a vicious creature," I begged. "You might be killed."

Jim laughed. "The horse isn't sired that could kill me, I reckon. I know them too well. Why, little girl, I was brought up among horses.

You can trust me not to run too big risks, now I've got something to make life worth living."

Stan has often told me that men hate girls to fuss over them, so I bit my lip and didn't tease any more, but I was far from happy. I didn't like the look in his eyes.

"May Sally and I go and see the horse with you?" I meekly asked.

"I'll ride him up to the house, if I find he's worth your seeing," Jim said. "But you mustn't worry if we don't come this way for awhile. I may have to work with him a bit before he's ready to show himself off to ladies."

With that he got his hat and went out with Mr. Trowbridge, who was waiting with a twinkle in his eyes.

"Oh, dear, I feel as if something horrid was going to happen!" I said to Sally, when they had gone.

"Pooh!" said she. "I should be sorry for the animal who tried to play tricks with that young man. You'll find you haven't known him, till you see him on a horse."

"I daresay I'm silly," I admitted. "But I have a presentiment of _something_. Let's go and sit out on the verandah and watch. We can't see the barn, but if they come out in the farm road we shall catch sight of them."

"All right," said Sally. "The sun's hot on the verandah; but that's a detail."

Already Jim and Mr. Trowbridge had disappeared, but as we were choosing the coolest place for our chairs, we saw a dusty, nondescript old vehicle rattling up the maple avenue, and just about to turn into the narrow road which leads round the side of the house. The hood was up to protect the pa.s.sengers from the sun, so at first we could see only the driver, and gather an indistinct impression that there were two figures in the back seat.

"Visitors," said I. "I didn't know Mrs. Trowbridge was expecting----"

Then I broke off with a little gasp.

"Oh, Sally, it's----"

"The Duke and Katherine!" she gurgled.

All my blood raced up to my head, as if I were going to have a sunstroke.

"No wonder I had a presentiment," I groaned, forgetting my fright about the horse, for a moment. "Do stand by me."

"I will," said Sally.

Mrs. Trowbridge and the girls were busy in the kitchen, making peach jam; so when the wretched old chaise drew up close to the verandah, Sally and I were alone to receive it.

If my sense of humour hadn't been trampled upon by various emotions which were all jumping about at the same time, I should have had hard work not to laugh when Stan and Mrs. Ess Kay scrambled out from under the lumbering old hood, which was like a great coal scuttle turned over their heads. Their hair was grey with dust, their faces purple with heat, and evidently they were both in towering tempers.

Stan looked at me the way he did once when I was small and spoiled his favourite cricket bat by digging up worms with it;--as if he could have shaken me well and boxed my ears, and would if I weren't a girl. As for Mrs. Ess Kay, she smiled; but her smile meant worse things than Stan's frown.

"Hullo, dear boy," I chirped, nervously. "How do you do, Mrs.

Stuyvesant-Knox?"

Sally murmured something, too, and Stan had the grace to claw off his hat, showing how damp his poor hair was on his crimson forehead, but he didn't even pretend to smile.