The Late Mrs. Null

by Frank R. Stockton

The young man approached his impatient horse, and, not without some difficulty, got himself mounted. He had not that facility of sympathetically combining his own will and that of his horse which comes to men who from their early boyhood are wont to consider horses as objects quite as necessary to locomotion as shoes and stockings. But Lawrence Croft was a fair graduate of a riding school, and he went away in very good style to his cottage at the Green Sulphur Springs. "I believe," he said to himself, as he rode through the woods, "that Miss March expects no more of me than she would expect of any very intimate friend. I shall feel perfectly free, therefore, to continue my investigations regarding two points: First, is she worth having? and: Second, will she have me? And I must be very careful not to get the position of these points reversed."

When Miss Roberta went into the store-room, it was Peggy, who, under the supervision of her mistress, measured out the fine white flour for the biscuits for supper. Peggy was being educated to do these things properly, and she knew exactly how many times the tin scoop must fill itself in the barrel for the ordinary needs of the family. Miss Roberta stood, her eyes contemplatively raised to the narrow window, through which she could see a flush of sunset mingling itself with the outer air; and Peggy scooped once, twice, thrice, four times; then she stopped, and, raising her head, there came into the far-away gloom of her eyes a quick sparkle like a flash of black lightning. She made another and entirely supplementary scoop, and then she stopped, and let the tin utensil fall into the barrel with a gentle thud.

"That will do," said Miss Roberta.

That night, when she should have been in her bed, Peggy sat alone by the hearth in Aunt Judy's cabin, baking a cake. It was a peculiar cake, for she could get no sugar for it, but she had supplied this deficiency with molasses. It was made of Miss Roberta's finest white flour, and eggs there were in it and butter, and it contained, besides, three raisins, an olive, and a prune. When the outside of the cake had been sufficiently baked, and every portion of it had been scrupulously eaten, the good little Peggy murmured to herself: "It's pow'ful comfortin' for Miss Rob to have sumfin' on her min'."

CHAPTER II.

About a week after Mr Lawrence Croft had had his conversation with Miss March on the stile steps at Midbranch, he was obliged to return to his home in New York. He was not a man of business, but he had business; and, besides this, he considered if he continued much longer to reside in the utterly attractionless cottage at the Green Sulphur Springs, and rode over every day to the very attractive house at Midbranch, that the points mentioned in the previous chapter might get themselves reversed. He was a man who was proud of being, under all circumstances, frank and honest with himself. He did not wish, if it could be avoided, to deceive other people, but he was prudent and careful about exhibiting his motives and intended course of action to his associates. Himself, however, he took into his strictest confidence. He was fond of the idea that he went into the battle of life covered and protected by a great shield, but that the inside of the shield was a mirror in which he could always see himself. Looking into this mirror, he now saw that, if he did not soon get away from Miss Roberta, he would lay down his shield and surrender, and it was his intent that this should not happen until he wished it to happen.

It was very natural when Lawrence reached New York, that he should take pleasure in talking about Miss Roberta March and her family with any one who knew them. He was particularly anxious, if he could do so delicately and without exciting any suspicion of his object, to know as much as possible about Sylvester March, the lady's father. In doing this, he did not feel that he was prying into the affairs of others, but he could not be true to himself unless he looked well in advance before he made the step on which his mind was set. It was in this way that he happened to learn that about two years before, Miss March had been engaged to be married, but that the engagement had been broken off for reasons not known to his informants, and he could find out nothing about the gentleman, except that his name was Junius Keswick.

The fact that the lady had had a lover, put her in a new light before Lawrence Croft. He had had an idea, suggested by the very friendly nature of their intercourse, that she was a woman whose mind did not run out to love or marriage, but now that he knew that she was susceptible of being wooed and won, because these things had actually happened to her, he was very glad that he had come away from Midbranch.

The impression soon became very strong upon the mind of Lawrence that he would like to know what kind of man was this former lover. He had known Miss March about a year, and at the time of his first acquaintaince with her, she must have come very fresh from this engagement. To study the man to whom Roberta March had been willing to engage herself, was, to Lawrence's mode of thinking, if not a prerequisite procedure in his contemplated course of action, at least a very desirable one.

But he was rather surprised to find that no one knew much about Mr Junius Keswick, or could give him any account of his present whereabouts, although he had been, at the time when his engagement was in force, a resident of New York. To consult a directory was, therefore, an obvious first step in the affair; and, with this intent, Mr Croft entered, one morning, an apothecary's shop in a street which, though a busy one, was in a rather out-of-the-way part of the city.