Gadsby, folding his "Post" into a narrow column, and handing it to that waiting lady, said nothing. As that good woman saw that paragraph, Gadsby saw first a gasp, following that, a grin, and finally:—
"Why! Of all things! So that's Nina—"
That row of print said, simply:—
"By Pastor Brown, on Saturday night, in Pastor's study, Nina Adams and Councilman Simpkins."
"Why!" said Lady Gadsby, laughing, "Nina sat on this porch only last month, talking about Old Bill, but saying nothing about this! I'm going right around to hug that darling woman; for that is what I call tact."
So, as Nina and our Lady sat talking, Nina said:
"You know that Bill and I, growing up from kids in school, always got along grandly; no childhood spats; but, still it was no 'crush' such as Youth falls into. As Bill got out of high school, I still had two rooms to go through. You also know that I wasn't a 'Miss' for long from graduation day. But Irving Adams was lost in that awful 'Titanic' calamity, and I brought up my baby in my widowhood. Bill was always sympathizing and patronizing, though all Branton Hills thought him a cast-iron grouch. But a public man is not always stiff and hard in his off hours; and Bill and I, slowly but gradually finding many a happy hour could—
"All right, you grand, luscious thing!!" and Lady Gadsby and Nina sat laughing on a couch, as in old, old school days. "And," said Nina, happily; "poor Bill's upstairs, now, putting his things around to suit him. Living for so long in a small lodging all his things staid in a trunk. A lodging-room always has various folks around, you know, and a man don't lay his things out as in his own room. So—"
"Nina," said Lady Gadsby; "do you know what brought him out of his old shut-in way of looking at things?"
"From just a word or two Bill drops, occasionally, I think that a child is—"