“Good-by, then,” said Mr. Gray pettishly, as he stooped to kiss her.
M’liss accepted the salute stoically. Mr. Gray took Mrs. Smith’s hand; her face had resumed its colorless, satin-like sheen.
“M’liss knows the strength of your good will, and makes her calculations accordingly. I hope she may not be mistaken,” she said, with a languid tenderness of voice and eye. The young man bent over her outstretched hand, and withdrew as the Wingdam stage noisily rattled up before the National Hotel.
There was but little time left to spend with Dr. Duchesne, so the physician walked with him to the stage office. There were a few of the old settlers lounging by the stage, who had discerned, just as the master was going away, how much they liked him. Mr. Gray had gone through the customary bibulous formula of leave-taking; with a hearty shake of the doctor’s hand, and a promise to write, he climbed to the box of the stage. “All aboard!” cried the driver, and with a preliminary bound, the stage rolled down Main Street.
Mr. Gray remained buried in thought as they rolled through the town, each object in passing recalling some incident of his past experience. The stage had reached the outskirts of the settlement when he detected a well-known little figure running down a by-trail to intersect the road before the stage had passed. He called the driver’s attention to it, and as they drew up at the crossing Aristides’s short legs and well-known features were plainly discernible through the dust. He was holding in his hand a letter.
“Well, my little man, what is it?” said the driver impatiently.
“A letter for the master,” gasped the exhausted child.
“Give it here!—Any answer?”
“Wait a moment,” said Mr. Gray.
“Look sharp, then, and get your billet duxis before you go next time.”