“No, no,” answered Reuben. “I will tell her what you say. You may trust us both.”
“Let me know how things go,” said the old man. “And good-night, Reuben.”
A tender twilight still reigned outside, and Reuben, walking along the village street, could see the softened mass of roofs and chimneys and the dark green bulk of trees outlined clearly against the sky. The air was soft and still, and something in the quiet and the dimness of the hour seemed to bear a hint of memory or continuation of the scene which had just closed. He was going to see Ruth at once, and she was naturally in his mind, and presented herself as vividly there as if he had been in her presence. The old man's trouble was so much more real to a lover than it could have been to another man! If it were he and Ruth who were thus parted! There lay a whole heartache. He loved Ezra, and yet it did not seem possible to feel his grief half so well save by seeing it as his own. Such a lonely terror lay in the thought of parting from Ruth and living forever without her, that it awoke in him an actual pang of pain for his uncle's trouble.
“But,” said Reuben, as he strode along, “that is what was. He felt it, no doubt, and felt it for many a dreary month. But it's over now, for the most part. I could have cried for him this morning, and again to-night, but it was more pity for the past than for the present.”
Ezra had been a sad man always, since Reuben could remember him, and yet not altogether an unhappy one. The sunshine of his life had seemed veiled, but not extinguished. And could love do so little at its most unfortunate and hapless ending? For some, maybe, but surely not for Reuben! For him, if love should die, what could there be but clouds and darkness forever and always? But the old take things tranquilly, and to the young it seems that they must always have been tranquil. Uncle Ezra a lover? A possible fancy. But Ezra loving as he loved? An impossible fancy. And even six-and-thirty looked old to Reuben's eyes, for he stood a whole decade under it.
“I will go at once,” said Ruth, so soon as she knew what was required of her. “I'll just tell father, and then I'll put on my hat and be ready in a minute. Will you “—with an exquisite demureness and simplicity—“will you go with me, Reuben?”
“Go and see Aunt Rachel?” cried old Fuller, when the girl had told him her intention. “Well, why not?” Ruth ran up-stairs, and Fuller waddled into the room where Reuben waited. “Ruth talks about bringin' th' ode wench back to rayson,” he said, with a fat chuckle, “but that's a road Miss Blythe 'll niver travel again, I reckon. Her said good-by to rayson, and shook hands a many hears ago. It's a bit too late i' life to patch up the quarrel betwigst 'em now.”
The old man's paces were so leisurely and heavy and Ruth's so quick and light that she was in the room before he had formulated this opinion, and stood at the looking-glass regarding Reuben's reflection in its dimly illumined depths as she patted and smoothed the ribbons beneath her chin.
“Let us hope not, father,” she said; and then turning upon Reuben, “I am ready.”
He offered her his arm and she took it. It was the simple fashion of the time and place. No engaged lovers took an airing of a dozen yards without that outward sign of the tie between them. They walked along in the soft summer evening, pitying Ezra and Rachel in gentle whispers.