"D'ye think so, gal?--d'ye think so?" exclaimed the deacon, his eyes fairly twinkling with pleasure. "That would be good news; and if he doesn't stop too long by the way, we might look for him home in less than ninety days from this moment!"
Mary smiled pensively, and a richer colour stole into her cheeks, slowly but distinctly.
"I do not think, uncle, that Roswell Gardiner will be very likely to stop on his way to us here, on Oyster Pond," was the answer she made.
"I should be sorry to think that. The best part of his v'y'ge may be made in the West Ingees, and I hope he is not a man to overlook his instructions."
"Will Roswell be obliged to stop in the West Indies, uncle?"
"Sartain--if he obeys his orders; and I think the young man will do that. But the business there will not detain him long,"--Mary's countenance brightened again, at this remark,--"and, should you be right, we, may still look for him in the next ninety days."
Mary remained silent for a short time, but her charming face was illuminated by an expression of heartfelt happiness, which, however, the next remark of her uncle's had an obvious tendency to disturb.
"Should Gar'ner come home successful, Mary," inquired the deacon, "successful in all things--successful in sealing, and successful in that other matter--the West Ingee business, I mean--but successful in all, as I daily pray he may be,--I want to know if you would then have him; always supposing that he got back himself unchanged?"
"Unchanged, I shall never be his wife," answered Mary, tremulously, but firmly.
The deacon looked at her in surprise; for he had never comprehended but one reason why the orphan and penniless Mary should refuse so pertinaciously to become the wife of Roswell Gardiner; and that was his own want of means. Now the deacon loved Mary more than he was aware of himself, but he had never actually made up his mind to leave her the heiress of his estate. The idea of parting with property at all, was too painful for him to think of making a will; and without such an instrument, there were others who would have come in for a part of the assets, "share and share alike," as the legal men express it. Of all this was the deacon fully aware and it occasionally troubled him: more of late than formerly, since he felt in his system the unerring signs of decay. Once had he got so far as to write on a page of foolscap, "In the name of God, Amen;" but the effort proved too great for him, and he abandoned the undertaking. Still Deacon Pratt loved his niece, and was well inclined to see her become the wife of "young Gar'ner," more especially should the last return successful.