Laurie stepped back in pure surprise. "No, of course not," said he. "I'll put it on a chair. Why, what's the matter, Milly? I guess you're nervous. Come back to the fire. Here, sit down where you were, and let's talk."
The cat, roused by a commotion which was insulting to her egotism, jumped down from the cushion, stretched into a fine curve, and made a silhouette of herself in a corner of the hearth. Amelia, a little ashamed, and not very well understanding what it was all about, came back, with shaking limbs, and dropped upon the settle, striving now to remember the conventionalities of saner living. Laurie was a kind man. At this moment, he thought only of reassuring her. He drew forward the chair left vacant by the cat, and beat up the cushion.
"There," said he, "I'll take this, and we'll talk."
Amelia recovered herself with a spring. She came up straight and tall, a concluded resolution in every muscle. She laid a hand upon his arm.
"Don't you sit there!" said she. "Don't you!"
"Why, Amelia!" he ejaculated, in a vain perplexity. "Why, Milly!"
She moved the chair back out of his grasp, and turned to him again.
"I understand it now," she went on rapidly. "I know just what I feel and think, and I thank my God it ain't too late. Don't you see I can't bear to have your clothes hang where his belong? Don't you see 't would kill me to have you sit in his chair? When I find puss there, it's a comfort. If 't was you—I don't know but I might do you a mischief!" Her voice sank, in awe of herself and her own capacity for passionate emotion.
Laurie Morse had much swift understanding of the human heart. His own nature partook of the feminine, and he shared its intuitions and its fears.
"I never should lay that up against you, Milly," he said kindly. "But we wouldn't have these things. You'd come to Saltash with me, and we'd furnish all new."