Not good verse, perhaps; but sufficiently tantalizing!
I don’t know precisely how it happened, but as I stooped to take the slip of paper from mother’s fingers, it somehow fluttered away from us, and after a little gyration or two, settled to the floor exactly at Silas Tunstall’s feet. He picked it up, before any one could interfere, and calmly proceeded to read the lines written upon it, before he handed it back to us. I saw the quick flush which sprang to Mr. Chester’s face, but the whole thing was over in a minute, almost before anyone could say a word.
Mr. Tunstall’s face was positively beaming, and he chuckled audibly as he picked up his hat and rose to his feet.
“Thet’s all fer the present, ain’t it, Mr. Chester?” he asked.
“Yes, that’s all, I think.”
“Let’s see—when did Mis’ Nelson die?”
“Three days ago—the seventeenth.”
“One month from thet’ll be May seventeenth, won’t it?”
“Yes.”
“All right; don’t ferget the date. May seventeenth—I’ll see ye all ag’in then. Good day, madam,” he added, with a deep bow to mother.