And he had wondered, as he cut across the fields, a chastened and a sadder Timothy under the friendly stars which winked so sympathetically, and rubbing his still stinging cheek as he walked, if there would ever be anybody who would understand Arethusa. He didn't. He could recall occasions when he had kissed her and had not been slapped.
Now Miss Eliza had unfortunately heard the conversation and the kiss and the slap and the dismissal of Timothy, from inside the sitting-room; and she had called Arethusa into her after the rejected suitor had fled and outdone even herself in the quality of her scolding. She had gone so far as to make a threat of such a truly horrible nature that it had turned Arethusa absolutely cold with the fear that she might really carry it out.
Arethusa had every right to be very angry with Timothy.
Timothy gathered him another little heap of stones, and one by one, with a perfect mastery of the art, skipped those all across the water. But he did it very gloomily, with no apparent pleasure, hardly as if conscious of what he were doing. And Arethusa continued to stare straight before her as if she had found new and unexpected beauties in a familiar landscape.
"I hate for us to be mad," said Timothy after awhile, making another attempt to break the hostile little silence.
"So do I," replied Arethusa non-committally.
Timothy brightened.
"But I expect to be mad at you as long as I live," she continued, and Timothy lapsed into gloom once more, "when you act the way you do. I don't see why you want to be always bothering me about marrying you; unless Aunt 'Liza puts you up to it. I don't want to marry you, Timothy; and I'll never change my mind about it. You needn't ask me again, ever. I want to be very good friends with you, because you're the very oldest friend I've got, but we can't be friends if you're going to be so silly and sentimental all the time. I hate sentimental people!"
Had Timothy's sense of humor not deserted him absolutely, he must have laughed at this; as it was, he took it very seriously.
Just then came a faint, "Ar——ee—thu——sa!" from the direction of the house, and Arethusa rose quickly to answer the call.