"A parson's wife?" I echoed stupidly, not in the least seeing what she meant.
"That would be worse than to take up with the prodigal son," she added, not heeding my interrogation; "though it does seem to me, my dear, that you are too good to be just served up like a fatted calf in honor of his return."
I stared at her with bewilderment so complete that she burst into a soft laugh, as mellow as her old laces.
"I am speaking parables, of course, and it's no matter now about the prodigal. I only wanted to suggest that you are not just the wife for Mr. Saychase, and"—
"Mr. Saychase!" I burst out, interrupting her, I think, for the first time in my life. "Why, who ever thought of anything so preposterous?"
"Oh, you innocent!" she laughed. "I knew you'd be the last one to see it, and I wanted to warn you so that he need not take you entirely by surprise. He is my pastor, and a very good man in his way; but he isn't our kind, my dear."
I sat staring at her in a sort of daze, while I suddenly remembered how much Mr. Saychase has been to see me lately, and how self-conscious he has seemed sometimes. I had not a word to say, even in protest, and old lady Andrews having, I suppose, accomplished all she wished in warning me, dropped the subject entirely, and turned back to Thomasine's doings and welfare.
The idea that Mr. Saychase has been thinking of me as a possible helpmate is certainly ludicrous. I believe thoroughly any girl should "thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love," but in this case I do not see how love comes into the question at all. I cannot help feeling that he would intellectually be the sort of a husband to put into a quart-pot, there to bid him drum, and at least he will lose no sleep from a blighted passion for me. Certainly I should be intellectually starved if I had to live with him. He is not naturally a man of much power of thinking, I suppose, and he has never cultivated the habit. One cannot help seeing that whatever his original capabilities they have been spoiled by his profession. A minister, Father said to me once, must either be so spiritual that his creed has no power to restrain him, or a poor crippled thing, pathetic because the desire of rising has made him hamper himself with vows. I think I understand what he meant, and I am afraid Mr. Saychase is of the latter sort: a man who meant well, and so pledged himself always to cling to the belief the church had made for him, no matter what higher light might come into his life. He is to be pitied,—though he would not understand why. He could hardly care for anybody so far from his way of thinking as I am, so old lady Andrews cannot be right there.
July 25. George is having his house enlarged. Mrs. Weston is certainly energetic, with what is perhaps a Western energy. She has been married only about four months. George told me the other day that he meant to make the house larger.
"Gertrude wants a bigger parlor," he explained, rather ill at ease, I thought. "The house is big enough for me, but when a man has a wife things are different."