Half an hour later, Magill, an Irish bachelor of thirty-five, who, being county clerk, was prudently riding through the country in order to keep up his acquaintance with the voters, hitched his horse at the fence outside of the Albaugh gate, and came in just as Rachel was bringing a candle. Though he had no notion of cumbering himself with a family or with anything else likely to interfere with the freedom or pleasure of "an Irish gentleman," Magill was very fond of playing at gallantry, and he affected a great liking for what he called "faymale beauty," and plumed himself on the impression his own sprucely dressed person and plump face—a little overruddy, especially toward the end of the nose—might make on the sex. He could never pass Albaugh's without stopping to enjoy a platonic flirtation with Rachel. George Lockwood arrived at the same time; he was a clerk in Wooden's store, at the county-seat village of Moscow, and he could manage, on his busiest days even, to spend half an hour in selling a spool of cotton thread to Rachel Albaugh. He had now come five miles in the vain hope of finding her alone. The country beauty appreciated the flattery of his long ride, and received his attention with a pleasure undisguised.
George Lockwood's was no platonic sentiment. He watched intently every motion of Rachel's arms only half-hidden in her open-sleeved dress; even the rustling of the calico of her gown made his pulses flutter. He made a shame-faced effort to conceal his agitation; he even tried to devote himself to Mely McCord and the "Miller girls" now and then; but his eyes followed Rachel's tranquil movements, as she amused herself with Magill's bald flatteries, and Lockwood could not help turning himself from side to side in order to keep the ravishing vision in view when he was talking to some one else.
"You had better make the most of your chance, Mr. Lockwood," said pert little Virginia Miller, piqued by his absent-minded pretense of talking with her.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Oh, talk to Rachel while you can, for maybe after a while you can't!"
"Why can't I?"
"She's glad enough to talk to you now, but just you wait till Tom Grayson comes. If he should happen in to-night, what do you think would become of you?"
"Maybe I'm not so dead in love as you think," he answered.
"You? You're past hope. Your eyes go round the room after her like a sunflower twistin' its neck off to see the sun."
"Pshaw!" said George. "You know better than that."