Miss Prudence Part 68

"We are often prophets to others only because we are our own historians."--_Madame Swetchine_.

The evening before Marjorie started for New York she was sitting alone in her father's arm chair before the sitting-room fire. Her mother had left her to go up to Mrs. Kemlo's chamber for her usual evening chat. Mrs.

Kemlo was not strong this winter, and on very cold days did not venture down-stairs to the sitting-room. Marjorie, her mother, and the young farmer who had charge of the farm, were often the only ones at the table, and the only occupants of the sitting-room during the long winter evenings. Marjorie sighed for Linnet, or she would have sighed for her, if she had been selfish; she remembered the evenings of studying with Morris, and the master's tread as he walked up and down and talked to her father.

Now she was alone in the dim light of two tallow candles. It was so cold that the small wood stove did not sufficiently heat the room, and she had wrapped the shawl about her that Linnet used to wear to school when Mr. Holmes taught. She hid herself in it, gathering her feet up under the skirt of her dress, in a position very comfortable and lazy, and very undignified for a maiden who would be twenty-five on her next birthday.

The last letter from Hollis had stated that he was seeking a position in the city. He thought he understood his business fairly, and the outlook was not discouraging. He had a little money well invested; his life was simple; and, beyond the having nothing to do, he was not anxious. He had thought of farming as a last resort; but there was rather a wide difference between tossing over laces and following the plow.

"Not that I dread hard work, but I do not love the _solitude_ of country life. 'A wise man is never less alone than when he is alone,' Swift writes; but I am not a wise man, nor a wild beast. I love men and the homes of men, the business of men, the opportunities that I find among men."

She had not replied to this letter; what a talk they would have over it!

She had learned Hollis; she knew him by heart; she could talk to him now almost as easily as she could write. These years of writing had been a great deal to both of them. They had educated each other.

The last time Mrs. West had seen Hollis she had wondered how she had ever dared speak to him as she had spoken that morning in the kitchen. Had she effected anything? She was not sure that they were engaged; she had "talked it over" with his mother, and that mother was equally in the dark.

"I know what his intentions are," confided Marjorie's mother "I know he means to have her, for he told me so."

"He has never told me so," said Hollis' mother.

"You haven't asked him," suggested Mrs. West comfortably.

"Have _you_?"

"I made an opportunity for it to be easy for him to tell me."

"I don't know how to make opportunities," returned Mrs. Rheid with some dignity.

"Everybody doesn't," was the complacent reply.

Marjorie had had a busy day arranging household matters for her mother while she should be gone, and was dozing with her head nestled in the soft folds of the shawl when her mother's step aroused her.

"Child, you are asleep and letting the fire go down."

"Am I?" she asked drowsily, "the room _is_ cold."

She wrapped the shawl about her more closely and nestled into it again.

"Perhaps Hollis will come home with you," her mother began, drawing her own especial chair nearer the fire and settling down as if for a long conversation.

"Mother, you will be chilly;" and, with the instinct that her mother must be taken care of, she sprang up with her eyes still half asleep and attended to the fire.

The dry chips soon kindled a blaze, and she was wide awake with the flush of sleep in her cheeks.

"Why do you think he will?" she asked.

"It looks like it. Mrs. Rheid ran over to-day to tell me that the Captain had offered to give him fifty acres and build him a house, if he would come home for good."

"I wonder if he will like it."

"You ought to know," in a suggestive tone.

"I am not sure. He does not like farming."

"A farm of his own may make a difference. And a house of his own. I suppose the Captain thinks he is engaged to you."

Mrs. West was rubbing her thumb nail and not looking at Marjorie.

Marjorie was playing with a chip, thrusting it into the fire and bringing it out lighted as she and Linnet used to like to do.

"Marjorie, _is_ he?"

"No, ma'am," answered Marjorie, the corners of her lips twitching.

"I'd like to know why he isn't," with some asperity.

"Perhaps he knows," suggested Marjorie, looking at her lighted chip. It was childish; but she must be doing something, if her mother would insist upon talking about Hollis.

"Do _you_ know?"

Marjorie dropped her chip into the stove and looked up at the broad figure in the wooden rocker--a figure in a black dress and gingham ap.r.o.n, with a neat white cap covering her gray hair, a round face, from which Marjorie had taken her roundness and dimples, a shrewd face with a determined mouth and the kindliest eyes that ever looked out upon the world. Marjorie looked at her and loved her.

"Mother, do you want to know? I haven't anything to tell you."

"Seems to me he's a long time about it."

Marjorie colored now, and, rising from her seat in front of the fire, wrapped the shawl again around her.

"Mother, dear, I'm not a child now; I am a woman grown."

"Too old to be advised," sighed her mother.

"I don't know what I need to be advised about."

"People never do. It is more than three years ago that he told me that he had never thought of any one but you."

"Why should he tell you that?" Marjorie's tone could be sharp as well as her mother's.

"I was talking about you. I said you were not well--I was afraid you were troubled--and he told me--that."

"Troubled about _what_?" Marjorie demanded.

"About his not answering your letter," in a wavering voice.

The words had to come; Mrs. West knew that Marjorie would have her answer.

"And--after that--he asked me--to write to him. Mother, mother, you do not know what you have done!"

Marjorie fled away in the dark up to her own little chamber, threw herself down on the bed without undressing, and lay all night, moaning and weeping.