From Jest to Earnest

by Edward Payson Roe

She met Mr. Dimmerly on the stairs, who took the brandy from her, saying: "That's sensible. We'll rub him down with it, inside and out, and he'll be all right in the morning. Now you see how blood tells. Making a parson of him can't change the fact of his coming from an old family. He has been as brave to-night as the Dimmerlys were a thousand years ago."

But Lottie was not a bit interested in the millennial Dimmerlys, and, putting her arms around her uncle's neck in a way that surprised that ancient fossil, she coaxed:

"Won't you promise me, uncle, that as soon as he is safe you will come out and let me know?"

"Safe! He's safe now. Who ever heard of even a half-blooded Dimmerly dying from a mere faint? Old age is the only disease that runs in our family, my dear. But I will let you know as soon as he is comfortably asleep. I am going to make my proper parson nephew almost drunk, for once in his life; and you needn't expect to see him much before ten o'clock to-morrow."

Lottie, finding her services were not needed in Miss Martell's room, went down to the kitchen, where she found the half-frozen oarsman-now rigged out in the dress-coat and white vest of the colored waiter—and the brave coachman who had put his old sea-craft to such good use. They were being royally cared for by the cook and laundress. The poor fellow who out in the boat had thought that the hearts of even his neighbors were as cold and hard as the ice that was destroying them had now forgotten his misanthropy, and was making a supper that, considering the hour, would threaten to an ordinary mortal more peril than that from which he had escaped. She drew from him—and especially from the coachman—the narrative of their thrilling experience, and every moment Hemstead grew more heroic in her eyes.

"Bless you, miss," said the bluff ex-sailor, his tongue a little loosened by the whiskey he had taken as an antidote for the cold and wet, "there's stuff enough in him to make a hundred such as t'other young gentleman as wouldn't go. Sudden spells, like that he had t'other night, is all he'll ever be 'stinguished for, I'm a-thinking. But I ax your pardon, miss."

"I can forgive you anything to-night, my brave fellow," said Lottie, blushing. "Though you have given Mr. Hemstead so much credit, he will give you more to-morrow. Take this and get something to remember this evening by"; and she slipped a twenty-dollar bank-note into his hand.

"Now bless your sweet eyes!" exclaimed the man, ducking and bobbing with bewildering rapidity; "it's your kindness that'll make me remember the evening to my dying day."

"How could you speak so of Mr. De Forrest, when the young leddy is engaged to him?" said the cook, reproachfully, after Lottie had gone.

"No matter," said the ex-sailor, stoutly. "I've had it on my conscience to give her a warnin'. I hadn't the heart to see such a trim little craft run into shallow water, and hoist no signal. If she was my darter, she'd have to mitten that lubber if he was wuth a million."