But just then Hemstead entered, and she had enough natural, womanly interest—not curiosity—to note the unconscious welcome of Lottie's eyes, and the quick color come and go in her face, as if a fire were burning in her heart and throwing its flickering light upon her fair features.
"Chance acquaintance, indeed!" she thought. "Why, here is this city-bred girl blushing as I once did about Mr. Dlimm. Whether she knows it or not, her blushes must tell the same story as mine."
But though Mrs. Dlimm was so unconventional, she had tact, and turned the conversation to the subject of the donation party.
"See here," she exclaimed exultantly, tugging a bulky commentary; "this is one of the results of your coming the other evening. Mr. Dlimm has been wanting this book a long time, and now he pores over it so much that I am getting jealous."
"The opinions expressed in such a ponderous volume ought to have great weight, surely," said Hemstead, smiling.
"And do you know," she continued, in an aside to Lottie, "that each of the children has had a new warm winter suit? and, wonderful to tell, I have bought myself a dress right from the store, instead of making over something sent me by brother Abel's wife from New York."
Lottie's eyes moistened, and she said in half soliloquy, "I didn't know it was so nice and easy to make others happy."
"Ah! depend upon it, you are learning lots of things," said Mrs. Dlimm, significantly. "When God begins to teach, then we do learn, and something worth knowing, too."
"I thought that God's lessons were very hard and painful," said
Lottie to Hemstead, with a spice of mischief in her manner.
"Mrs. Dlimm is a better authority than I was," he replied. "Do you know," he continued, addressing their hostess, "that Miss Marsden has done more to teach me how to preach than all my years at the seminary?"