Medoline Selwyn's Work Part 12

"You give him an unmerciful blow; a leetle more and he'd never barked again."

"Bring him in and I'll give him a bone and rub the sore place with liniment."

"Let me feed him," I begged. "I want to make friends with him."

"You'd best not put your hands on him. He don't make free with strangers."

I took the bone; to my regret it was picked nearly bare, and I idly resolved Tiger should have a good solid dinner the next day, if he and I survived the mishaps of the night.

"Poor fellow! I am very, very sorry I have caused you so much pain," I said, giving him the bone and patting his huge head fearlessly.

"Look out!" Daniel said, warningly.

"You needn't be afeard," his mother said. "Tiger knows quality."

Whether he was as knowing in this respect as she a.s.serted, he gnawed his bone and let me stroke his s.h.a.ggy coat, while Mrs. Blake bathed his bruised back.

"There, he'll be all right now in no time; and Dan'el, you get the lantern and we'll go back to Oaklands with Miss Selwyn."

Daniel got up wearily, and did as his mother bade. After his hard day's work in the mill he would willingly, no doubt, have been excused escorting damsels in distress to their homes.

Mrs. Blake soon came out of her room with her bonnet and shawl on--the former one without a veil, which she excused on the ground that dew took the stiffening out of c.r.a.pe--"Leastways," she added, "the kind I wear."

Tiger followed us, and more in mercy to him than the tired Daniel, I insisted on going home alone once we had got beyond the precincts of the Mill Road. I met with no further adventure, and reached my own room in safety, fondly hoping no one in the house was aware of my evening's ramble, and one that I determined should never be repeated. My cheeks burned even after my light was extinguished, and my head throbbed on the pillow at Mr. Winthrop's biting sarcasm if he knew the risk I had just run from bipeds and quadrupeds, with Daniel Blake, his mother and dog as body-guard past the danger of Mill Road ruffianism.

CHAPTER X.

A HELPING HAND.

The following morning I went down to breakfast with some trepidation, and feeling very much like a culprit. Mrs. Flaxman came into the room first, and in her mild, incurious fashion said: "We were hunting for you last evening. Mr. Winthrop wished to see you about something."

I did not reply, neither did she inquire where I had bestowed myself out of reach of their voices. I felt certain Mr. Winthrop's curiosity would be more insistent, and was quite right in my conjectures. He came in as usual, just on the minute, and seating himself, went through with the formality of grace; but before our plates were served, he turned to me and rather sternly said: "Are you in the habit of going out for solitary night rambles?"

"I never did but once," I faltered, too proudly honest to give an evasive answer.

"That once, I presume, occurred last night?"

"Yes."

"Strictly speaking, it wanted just five minutes to nine when you slipped stealthily into the side entrance."

I sat, culprit-like, in silence, while his eyes were watching me closely.

"Don't you think two hours a long time to be loitering about the garden in the dark?"

"You must not be too hard on Medoline," Mrs. Flaxman interposed. "It is an instinct with young folk to stray under the starlight and dream their dreams. No doubt we both have been guilty of doing it in our time." I flashed Mrs. Flaxman a look of grat.i.tude, and wondered at the nave way she counted Mr. Winthrop with herself, as if he too had arrived at staid middle-agehood.

"Dreaming under stars and wandering around in attendance on widows are two very different occupations," he said, quietly, and without a break in his voice asked Mrs. Flaxman what he should help her to. I swallowed my breakfast--what little I could eat--with the feeling that possibly each succeeding mouthful might choke me; but full hearts do not usually prove fatal, even at meal time.

I arose from the table as soon as Mr. Winthrop laid down his napkin, and was hastening from the room when I heard him move back his chair; and, swift as were my movements, he was in the hall before I had reached the topmost step of the staircase.

"Just one more word, please," I heard him say. I turned around, resolved to take the remainder of my lecture from a position where I could look down on him. He held out a parcel, saying: "Will you come and get this, or shall I carry it to you?"

I descended without replying, and held out my hand for the roll. He took hold of my hand instead. The firm, strong grasp comforted me, though I expected a severer lecture than I had ever received before in all my life. I looked up at him through tear-filled eyes when he said, in a strangely gentle voice for the circ.u.mstances:

"I saw you coming along the Mill Road last night with the Blakes and their lantern. Why were you there so late?"

"I wanted so much to tell the widow Lark.u.m I was in a position now to help her."

He was silent for awhile; then he said:

"I am glad you did not try to mislead me at the breakfast-table. I could not easily have forgiven such an act. Next to purity, I admire perfect truth in your s.e.x."

"Mr. Winthrop, you will believe me that I never went out of our own grounds after night before alone, and I never will, if I live for a hundred years."

"Pray do not make rash promises. I only claim obedience to my wishes until you are of age. I will accept your word until that date, and shall not go in search of you along the Mill Road, or any other disreputable portion of the town again. Your mother's daughter can be trusted."

I tried to withdraw my hand, in order to escape with my tear-stained face to my own room, quite forgetting the parcel I had come down the stairway for.

"We start for New York this afternoon. Mrs. Flaxman accompanies us. She will be congenial society for you, having been a widow for nearly a score of years."

"I do not care particularly for widows. It is the poor and desolate I pity."

"Well, here is the first instalment of widows' money. I give it to you quarterly, purely from benevolent motives."

"Why so?" I asked, curiously.

"If you received it all at once Mill Road would be resplendent with c.r.a.pe and cheap jewelry."

"I suppose I must thank you," I said, hotly; "but the manner of the giving takes away all the grace of the gift."

"You express yourself a trifle obscurely, but I think I comprehend your meaning," he said, without change of voice. If I could have seen his eyes flash, or his imperturbable calm disturbed, my own anger would have been less keen.

"May I go now?" I presently asked, quite subdued; for he had fallen into a brown study, and was still holding my hand.

"Yes, I had forgotten," he said, turning away, and a moment after entered the library and shut the door. I went in search of Mrs. Flaxman, whom I found still in the breakfast-room, and in a rather nervous condition, busy about the china, which she rarely permitted the servant to wash.

"Shall we stay long in New York?" I asked, very cheerfully, the fifty dollars I held in my hand, and the easy way I had got off with Mr.

Winthrop, making me quite elated.

"One can never tell. Mr. Winthrop is very uncertain; we may return in a day or two, or we may stay a fortnight."

"You are not anxious to go?" I questioned, seeing her troubled face.

"Not just now, in the height of the pickling and preserving season.

Reynolds has excellent judgment, but I prefer looking after such things myself."