It is a matter of doubt whether any vulgar man suspects the full extent of his vulgarity; but there are few who are not conscious, now and then, of a very uncomfortable difference between themselves and the refined natures with whom they come in contact. Alfred Barton had never been so troubled by this consciousness as when in the presence of Martha Deane. He was afraid of her; he foresaw that she, as his wife, would place him in a more painful subjection than that which his father now enforced. He was weary of bondage, and longed to draw a free, unworried breath. With all his swagger, his life had not always been easy or agreeable. A year or two more might see him, in fact and in truth, his own master. He was fifty years old; his habits of life were fixed; he would have shrunk from the semi-servitude of marriage, though with a woman after his own heart, and there was nothing in this (except the money) to attract him.
“I see no way!” he suddenly exclaimed, after a fit of long and unsatisfactory musing.
“Nor I neither, unless you make room for me!” answered a shrill voice at his side.
He started as if shot, becoming aware of Miss Betsy Lavender, who had just emerged from the thicket.
“Skeered ye, have I?” said she. “Why, how you do color up, to be sure! I never was that red, even in my blushin' days; but never mind, what's said to nobody is nobody's business.”
He laughed a forced laugh. “I was thinking, Miss Betsy,” he said, “how to get the grain threshed and sent to the mills before prices come down. Which way are you going?”
She had been observing him through half-closed eyes, with her head a little thrown back. First slightly nodding to herself, as if assenting to some mental remark, she asked,—
“Which way are you goin'? For my part I rather think we're changin' places,—me to see Miss Ann, and you to see Miss Martha.”
“You're wrong!” he exclaimed. “I was only going to make a little neighborly call on the Doctor.”
“On the Doctor! Ah-ha! it's come to that, has it? Well, I won't be in the way.”