Seth chuckled audibly, in good-natured derision. “What a mountain out of a mole hill! Why Alvira has glared at people that way, with her little black-bead eyes, ever since I was a boy. She doesn’t mean anything by it,—not the least in the world. The trouble is, Isabel, that you let your imagination run away with you. You are desperately lonesome here, and you amuse yourself by conjuring up all sorts of tragic things. You will have Aunt Sabrina a professional witch next thing you know, and Milton a mystic conspirator, and this plain old clap-boarded farm house a castle of enchantment.”
He had never before assumed even this jocose air of superiority over his blond sister-in-law, and he closed his sentence in some little trepidation lest she should resent it. But no, she received it with meekness, and only protested mildly against the assumption underneath.
“No, I am sure there is something in it. She is brooding about Milton. Not in any sentimental way, you know, but it used to be understood, I think, that they were to marry, and now he carries himself way above her. Why, I can remember, as long ago as when I visited here that summer, when we were all boys and girls and cousins together, I heard your mother say they would make a match of it some time. But now he avoids the kitchen and her. It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it, for me to be speculating in this way about the love affairs of the servants. But you are driven to it here. You have no idea how grateful one gets to be, here in the country, for the smallest item of human gossip.”
Seth was still considering whether it was possible for him, in careful language, to suggest his own—or rather the Lawton girl’s—view of the Milton-Alvira affair, when Isabel spoke again:
“Speaking of gossip, there is something I have been tempted half a dozen times to mention to you—something I heard almost every day during the little time that the women round-about were calling on me. You will guess what I mean—the talk about you and Annie.”
Seth did not immediately answer, and she continued:
“Of course, you know, Seth, that I wouldn’t speak of it if I thought it would be distasteful to you. But I know it used to be the idea that you two were marked for each other. I have heard ever so much about it since we have lived here. And yet you don’t seem to me to be at all like lovers—hardly even like affectionate cousins. I think she has rather avoided the house since you have been here, although that, of course, may be only imagination. She is such a dear, good girl, and I am so fond of her, but still I can hardly imagine her as your wife. You don’t mind my speaking about it, do you?”
Seth was still at a loss what to say, or, better, how to say it. While she had been speaking the contrast between the two young women, which had been slumbering in his mind for a year, had risen vividly before him. The smile, half-deprecating, half-inviting, with which she looked this last question at him, as she laid the everlasting embroidery down, and leaned slightly forward for a reply, gave the final touch to his vanishing doubts.
“Mind your speaking about it? No, no, Isabel.” He scarcely knew his own voice, it was so full of cooing softness. “I am glad you did—for—for who has a better right? No, there is nothing in the gossip. Our people—my mother, her grandmother—had it in mind once, I believe, but Annie and I have never so much as hinted at it between ourselves. Ever since mother’s death old Mrs. Warren has, however, taken a deep dislike to me—you remember how she forbade Annie to go with us on that fishing trip—but even without that——”
“Ah, I shan’t forget that fishing trip,” Isabel whispered, still with the tender smile.