“It is all so splendid,” she said vaguely. “A poor lunch, you say; it is ever and ever so much better than my usual daily fare,” and her voice had a vibration that suggested tearfulness. “This is almost too good to be true! I have always loved the open space and sun, and for two weary years I lived in a dismal room of a dismal house in a particularly dismal street, where there was nothing but mud and smoke, half-paid work, and sickening drudgery. Ralph, I should ten times over sooner wash milk-pans or drive cattle in a sunlit land like this.”
I laughed approvingly as she ceased for want of breath, realizing that Aline had much in common with myself; while the rest of the journey passed very cheerfully, and her face was eager with curiosity when I handed her down at the house. She looked around our living room with disdainful eyes.
“It is comfortable enough, but, Ralph, did you ever brush it? I have never seen any place half so dirty.”
I had not noticed the fact before. Indeed, under pressure of work we had usually dispensed with small comforts, superfluous cleanliness I fear among them, and Fairmead was certainly very dirty, though it probably differed but little from most bachelors’ quarters in that region. The stove-baked clods of the previous ploughing still littered the floor; the dust that was thick everywhere doubtless came in with our last thrashing; and the dishes I had used during the last few weeks reposed unwashed among it. But Aline was clearly a woman of action.
“You shockingly untidy man!” she said severely. “Carry my trunk into my room, quick. I am going to put on an old dress, and make you help me clean up first thing. Tired?—after lounging on soft cushions—when I tramped 228 miles of muddy streets carrying heavy books every day. You won’t get out of it that way. Go away, and bring me some water—bring lots of it.”
When I came back from the well, with a filled cask in the wagon, she had already put on a calico wrapper and both doors and windows were open wide, and I hardly recognized the dwelling when we had finished what Aline said was only the first stage of the proceedings. Then I lighted the stove, and, returning after stabling the horses, found her waiting at the head of a neatly-set table covered with a clean white cloth, which she had doubtless brought with her, for such things were not included in the Fairmead inventory. The house seemed brighter for her presence, though I sighed as I pictured Grace in her place, and then reflected that many things must be added before Fairmead was fit for Grace. I had begun to learn a useful lesson in practical details. Aline noticed the sigh, and plied me with questions, until when, for the nights were getting chilly, we sat beside the twinkling stove, I told her as much as I thought it was desirable that she should know. Aline was two years my junior, and I had no great confidence as yet in her wisdom.
She listened with close attention, and then said meditatively: “I hope that some day you will be happy. No, never mind explaining that you must be—marriage is a great lottery. But why, you foolish boy, must you fall in love with the daughter of that perfectly awful man! There was some one so much nicer at home, you know, and I feel sure she was very fond of you. Alice is a darling, even if she has not much judgment in such matters. Oh, dear me, what am I saying now!”
“Good Lord!” I said, startled by an idea that hitherto had never for a moment occurred to me. “I beg your 229 pardon; but you are only a young girl, Aline. Of course you must be mistaken, because—it couldn’t be so. I am as poor as a gopher almost, and she is a heiress. Don’t you realize that it’s utterly unbecoming for any one of your years to talk so lightly of these matters.”
Aline laughed mischievously. “Are you so old and wise already, Ralph?” she asked. “Brotherly superiority won’t go very far with a girl who has earned her own living. As you say, I should not have told you this, but you must have been blinder than a mole—even your uncle saw it, and I am quite right.” She looked me over critically before she continued, as though puzzled: “I really cannot see why she should be so, and I begin to fancy that a little plain speaking will be good for my elder brother.”
I checked the exclamation just in time, and stared at her while I struggled with a feeling of shame and dismay. It was not that I had chosen Grace, but it was borne in on me forcibly that besides wounding the feelings of the two persons to whom I owed a heavy debt of gratitude, I must more than once, in mock heroic fashion, have made a stupendous fool of myself. Such knowledge was not pleasant, though perhaps the draught was beneficial, and if plain speaking of that kind were wholesome there was more in store, for hardship had not destroyed Aline’s inquisitorial curiosity, nor her fondness for comments, which, if winged with mischief, had truth in them. Thus, to avoid dangerous subjects, I confined my conversation to my partners and railroad building.