The old ladies had all finished their suppers, but not one of them left the room. They were watching Miss Selby and Mr. Anderson. Surely not a remarkable spectacle, simply a nice looking young man and[Pg 383] a pretty young girl, sitting, quite speechless, now, at a little table.
Yet one old lady actually wiped tears from her eyes, and every one of them felt an odd and tender little stir at the heart, as if the perfume of very old memories had blown in at the opened window.
“Let’s go out on the veranda,” said Mr. Anderson to Miss Selby, and they did.
The rain was coming down steadily, and the wind sighed in the pines. But it was a June night, a summer night, a young night.
Not an old lady set foot on the veranda that evening, not another human being heard what Miss Selby from Boston, and Mr. Anderson from New York had to say to each other.
Only Mrs. Brown, opening the door for a breath of fresh air, did happen to hear him saying something about the “best sort of paper for wedding announcements.[Pg 384]”
MUNSEY’S
MAGAZINE
APRIL, 1926
Vol. LXXXVII NUMBER 3
TO OUR READERS—Since Mr. Munsey’s death we have received so many inquiries for the books of which he was the author, all of which have been out of print for many years, that in the present number of the magazine we reprint, complete, this short novel, which was written in the early part of 1892. We feel sure that our readers will be greatly interested in the story, not only on account of its authorship, but because it is a convincing picture of a phase of American society thirty-five years ago.