Young Calvin, who was expected to succeed his father in the venerable church close by, and was studying divinity, said with much cool maturity:
"Pa, I've taken it all in. She's the only single girl in Kensington worth proposing to. It's true that we don't know just who she is, but it's not that I'm so much afraid of as her, her—in short, her piety."
"Piety does not stand in the way of marriage," answered the old man, who was both bold and prudent, wise and sincere. "In the covenant of God nothing is denied to his saints in righteousness. The sense of wedded pleasure, the beauty that delights the eye, love, appetite, children, and financial independence—all are ours, no less as of the Elect than as worldly creatures. The love of God in the heart warms men and women toward each other."
"Oh, as to that!" exclaimed Calvin, "I've been warmed toward Miss Agnes since I was a boy. I think she is superb. But she is a little too good for me. She looks at me whenever I talk to her, whereas the proper way of humility would be to look down. She has been in love with Andrew Zane, you know!"
"That," said the preacher, "is probably off; though I never discovered in Andrew more evil than a light heart and occasional rebellion. If she loves him still, do not be in haste to jar her sensibility. It is thoughtfulness which engenders love."
The young women of Kensington were divided about Agnes Wilt. The poorer girls thought her perfect. But some marriageable and some married women, moving in her own sphere of society, criticised her popularity, and said she must be artful to control so many men. There are no depths to which jealousy cannot go in a small suburban society. Agnes, as an orphan, had felt it since childhood, but nothing had ever happened until now to concentrate slander as well as sympathy upon her. It was told abroad that she had been the mistress of her deceased benefactor, who had fallen by the hands of his infuriated son. Even the police authorities gave some slight consideration to this view. Old people remarked: "If she has been deceiving people, she will not stop now. She will have other secret lovers."
Inquiries had been made for some time as to who the unknown executor, Duff Salter, might be, when one day Rev. Mr. Van de Lear walked over to the Zane house with a broad-shouldered, grave, silent-eyed man, who wore a very long white beard reaching to his middle. As he was also tall and but little bent, he had that mysterious union of strength and age which was perfected by his expression of long and absolute silence.
"Agnes," said Mr. Van de Lear, "this is an old Scotch-Irish friend and classmate of the late Mr. Zane, Duff Salter of Arkansas. He cannot hear what I have said, for he is almost stone deaf. However, go through the motions of shaking hands. I am told he has heard very little of anything for the past ten years. An explosion in a quicksilver mine broke his ear-drums."
Agnes, dressed in deep black, shook hands with the grave stranger dutifully, and said:
"I am sure you are welcome, sir."