“But suppose it made me happy to do it? Suppose it interested and amused me while waiting for you?” she asked.
“Ah, ‘waiting’ indeed! how long you have waited! I was in hopes that you had gone to bed and gone to sleep; but when I saw the lights in the drawing-room windows, I knew that you were still up.”
“I left the shutters open on purpose; I thought the light would look cheerful to you as you rode home through the woods.”
“Dear heart! I ought to have known your loving motive as I came along; but I didn’t. Ah, weren’t you tired and sleepy with waiting?” he asked, as he drew her on his knee.
“Why no. It is not so very late, after all. And I have sat up many and many a night later than this only to finish a piece of needle-work I happened to be pleased with, or book I was interested in. And wouldn’t I much sooner sit up to give my dearest a good warm supper after his long, cold ride?”
“My pet, my love, my darling, my—oh! what can I call you that will be good enough and dear enough for you?”
“Call me no hard names at all,” she said, gayly, kissing him and springing from his lap. “But take off your boots while I put supper on the table.”
Poor little Drusilla, these arrangements of hers were not according to the usages of “good society.” Now, Anna Lyon would have let her husband go up to the top of the house in the cold before she would have permitted the boot-jack to be brought into the drawing-room; and would have let him broken his fast in a dreary dining-room, or even gone hungry and thirsty to bed, before she would have allowed a kettle to be boiled, or a supper to be laid, in the drawing-room. And only a few hours before this Alexander had been lamenting in his heart his little wife’s deficiencies in the manners of “good society.” But now he was hungry and cold, and so,—flagrant as her breach of etiquette was, he did not seem to see it; he only realized that he was at this moment the happiest man, with the loveliest wife, in existence.
The supper was soon placed upon the table. Of the two silver covered dishes, one was found to contain a pair of nicely roasted partridges, and the other equally well roasted potatoes. Besides these, there was a fresh salad prepared, as he thought none but Drusilla could prepare it. And there were light biscuits and delicate jellies and fresh fruits. And there were “schnapps” and lemons and loaf sugar, and all the materials for the hot punch that she thought he would like after his cold ride.
“Tell me, darling,” said Alexander, after he had refreshed himself with these viands, and was taking his ease between the table and the fire, “tell me how you have passed the lonely day. Were you very lonely and very anxious?”