She finished the sentence by a faltering step toward him, her arms outstretched, her lips parted, her form offering itself for his embrace with a sinuous seduction of moving outlines.
The old witchery flamed up for a second in his pulses; then it was emberless ashes.
Without a word he turned and left her.
Aunt Sabrina opened the door of her room in response to his strenuous rapping, and wiped her tear-stained face with the end of her shoulder-shawl as her nephew entered. At his behest, she told all the tidings that had come to the farm. Its master had been found at the bottom of Tallman’s ravine, by some boys who had climbed down to see if the beech-nuts were turning. The whole equipage had pitched off the narrow road which crossed the gulf at this point, high above. The buggy was smashed. One of the horses was dead; the other had two of its legs broken. Half hidden under the carriage and one of the beasts was Albert, quite lifeless and cold. The men who brought the news believed every bone in his body must have been broken.
As she concluded the bare recital of facts, the poor old maid began her sobbing afresh.
“I might uv knaowd it’d ’a’ come to this,” she groaned; “‘pride goeth before a fall,’ ez Solomon says. I hed my heart tew much sot on his goin’ to Congress; I was exaltin’ my horn tew high. I was settin’ by the window, that very minute, watchin’ Sarah Andrews go by perked up in their democrat wagon, with her injy shawl ’n all her fine feathers on, ’n’ never so much’s turnin’ her head this way, ’n’ I was sayin’ to myself, ‘M’ lady, you’ll come daown a peg ’r two off ’n your high hoss when Albert goes to Congress’—’n’ there the men was comin’ in the gate, thet identical minute, with the news. I tell you!” she roused herself into indignant declamation here, “men like Zeke Tallman ought to be hung, who ’re tew shiftless or penurious to fix up their fences on pieces o’ raoad like thet, sao’s to keep folks from drivin’ off in the dark, ’n’ killin’ themselves! That’s what they ought!”
“But it wasn’t dark, Aunt Sabrina,” said Seth; “the moon was so bright all last night, you could have seen to read by it.”
The old lady was too occupied with her own thoughts to even think of inquiring as to her nephew’s source of information. She only rocked to and fro, desolately, and said, as if talking to herself:
“Sao much the wuss, Seth. It was to be! Nothin’ could a’ stopped it. Thet old witch, M’tildy Warren, is right. There’s a cuss on aour fam’ly. Here, almost inside tew years, Sissly’s gone, ’n’ Lemuel’s gone, ’n’ naow its poor Albert! ’N’ he was gittin’ so like his grandfather, the Senator, tew, gittin’ to look like him, ’n’ ack like him; I kin remember my father——”