"Oh, I don't mind your hoping," she answered, composing her expression to demureness, "if only you won't hope—very hard."
Then, leaving him overwhelmed by his emotions, she tripped up the narrow walk, bordered by stunted rose-bushes, to the crumbling porch of Solomon's house. At the door a bright new gig, with red wheels, caught her eye, and before the mischievous dimples had fled from her cheek, she ran into the arms of the Reverend Orlando Mullen.
Her confusion brought a beautiful colour into his cheeks, while, in a chivalrous effort to shield her from further embarrassment, he turned his eyes to the face of Judy Hatch, which was lifted at his side like the rapt countenance of one of the wan-featured, adoring saints of a Fra Angelico painting. No one—not even the nurse of his infancy—had ever imputed a fault either to his character or to his deportment; for he had come into the world endowed with an infallible instinct for the commonplace. In any profession he would have won success as a shining light of mediocrity, since the ruling motive of his conduct was less the ambition to excel than the moral inability to be peculiar. His mind was small and solemn, and he had worn three straight and unyielding wrinkles across his forehead in his earnest endeavour to prevent people from acting, and especially from thinking, lightly. This sedulous devotion to the public morals kept him not only a trifle spare in figure, but lent an habitual manner of divine authority to his most trivial utterance. His head, seen from the rear, was a little flat, but this, fortunately, did not show in the pulpit—where at the age of twenty-four his eloquence enraptured his congregation.
"I postponed my visit to Applegate until to-morrow," he said, when he had given her what he thought was sufficient time to recover her composure. "If you are returning shortly, perhaps I may have the pleasure of driving you in my gig. I have just come to inquire after Mrs. Hatch."
"It would be kind of you, for I am a little tired," responded Molly. "I came to speak to Judy, and then I am to stop at the mill to borrow a pattern from Blossom Revercomb. Are you going that way, I wonder?"
"I shall make it my way," he replied gallantly, "as soon as you are ready. Don't hurry, I beg of you. It is gratifying to me to find that you have so soon taken my advice and devoted a portion of your days to visiting the sick and the afflicted."
With her back discreetly turned upon Judy, she looked up at him for a moment, and something in her eyes rendered unnecessary the words that fell slowly and softly from her lips.
"You give such good advice, Mr. Mullen."
A boyish eagerness showed in his face, breaking through the professional austerity of his manner.
"I hope you've advised Judy this morning," she added before he could answer.