“Oh, aunt Dely!” faltered Alethea, amazed and almost speechless.
But aunt Dely, charmed with the image she had conjured up, had no mind to relinquish this mythical man, and added another touch of verisimilitude: “He’s well off, too. Lethe, she don’t keer nuthin’ ’bout riches, but bein’ ez I hev ’sociated so much with town folks, I sorter set store by worldly goods,—though not enough ter resk my soul’s salvation, nuther.”
Aunt Dely’s evident desire was to combine spiritual and material welfare, and in this she was not unlike more sophisticated religionists.
The opinionated Bluff being induced to turn around at last, Mrs. Purvine let fly a Parthian dart: “But ez ter you-uns, Elviry, I dunno whether ye hed better be lookin’ down on fust one boy, an’ then another. Ye’ll git lef’ hyar a lonesome single woman, the fust thing ye know,—the only one in the cove! But then, mebbe ye’d better jes’ bow yer mind ter the dispensation, fur arter all ye moughtn’t be able ter ketch Mink. The gals honey him up so ez he air toler’ble sp’iled; they ’low he air special good-lookin’, though I hev never been able ter see good looks in him sence he kem ter my house, one night, an’ bedeviled my front steps so ez they hev never been so stiddy sence.”
“Aunt Dely,” cried Alethea, when they were once more on their homeward way, “what ailed ye ter tell Elviry sech a pack o’”—Respect for her elders restrained her.
“I war prompted by my conscience!” replied the logical Mrs. Purvine, unexpectedly. “I can’t be at peace with my conscience ’thout doin’ all I kin ter purvent a spry, good-lookin’ gal like you-uns from marryin’ a wuthless critter sech ez Mink Lorey.” She made no secret of her designs. “He be good a plenty an’ ter spare fur that thar snake-eyed Elviry Crosby, but I want ye ter marry Jerry Price, an’ kem an’ live along o’ me.”
The immaterial suitor evolved by Mrs. Purvine’s conscience dwelt in Alethea’s mind with singular consistency and effect afterward. When she was once more in Wild-Cat Hollow, and day after day passed,—short days they were, of early winter,—and Mink did not come, expectation was supplanted by alternations of hope and disappointment, and they in their turn by fear and despair. Was it possible, she asked herself, that he could have heard and credited this fantastic invention of Mrs. Purvine’s affection and pride; that Elvira had poisoned his mind; that he was jealous and angry; that for this he had held aloof? Then the recollection of their old differences came upon her. His sorrows had obliterated them in her contemplation. It did not follow, however, that they had brought her nearer to him. He had long ago fallen away from her. Why should she expect that he would return now? She remembered with a new interpretation his joyous relief the morning that she had told to him and his lawyer in the jail the story of her glimpse of Tad; although she had shared his gratulation, it was for his sake alone. She remembered his burning eyes fixed with fiery reproaches upon her face in the court-room, when the disclosure was elicited that it was in a graveyard she had seen the missing boy. After all, she had done nothing for him; her testimony had fostered doubt and roused superstition, and other and stronger friends had effected his release.
She became silent, sober-eyed, and absorbed, and went mechanically about the house. Her changed demeanor occasioned comment from Mrs. Jessup, who sat idle, with a frowzy head and an active snuff-brush, by the fireside instead of on the porch, as in the summer days. “When Lethe fust kem back from Shaftesville she ’peared sorter peart an’ livened up. Her brain war shuck up, somehow, by her travels. I ’lowed she war a-goin’ ter behave arter this like sure enough folks,—but shucks! she ’pears ter be feared ter open her mouth, else folks’ll know she hev got a tongue ’twixt her teeth.” For Alethea found it hard now to reply to the continued queries of Mrs. Sayles and Mrs. Jessup, who had relished her opportunity, and in the girl’s observation of village life were enjoying all the benefits of travel without impinging upon their inertia or undertaking its fatigues. The elder woman sat smoking in the corner, her pink sun-bonnet overhanging her pallid, thin face, ever and anon producing a leaf of badly cured tobacco, and drying it upon the hearth-stone before serving her pipe. Now and then she chuckled silently and toothlessly at some detail of the gossip. It had hurt the girl to know how little they cared for the true object of the expedition. Mink Lorey was naught to them, and they did not affect a picturesque humanity which they did not feel.
“Waal, sir!” Mrs. Sayles would say, “I’ll be bound them town folks air talkin’ ’bout Dely Purvine yit. I jes’ kin view in the sperit how she went a-boguein’ roun’ that town, stare-gazin’ everything, like she war raised nowhar, an’ warn’t used ter nuthin’. Didn’t the folks laff powerful at yer aunt Dely?”