“What kind of a spell?” demanded Lanty, his heart standing still.
“Nerves,” said Miss Tribbey briefly, avoiding the anxious blue eyes of her favourite. She did not know how far matters had gone, nor how clear an understanding there was between the young people. Miss Tribbey was too staunch a woman to betray her sex even in a good cause (and the making of a match between these two Miss Tribbey regarded as a distinctly good cause).
“Is it—is it her head?” asked Lanty miserably.
Miss Temperance eyed him severely—but she had misjudged her own strength.
“It’s jist nothin’ but nerves,” she said—“girls’ nerves; they’re naterally nervous, girls is, and M’bella ain’t one of your coarse-grained sort. She’s easily upset and tender-hearted as a chicken. My soul! how all the brute beasts love her and how she sets store by them. I tell you that girl can’t pass a hen without sayin’ something pleasant to it. She’ll be all right to-morrow; but Lanty”—she quickened her speech as they heard steps coming to the kitchen—“Lanty, she’s got no mother.”
Lanty caught her hand—“I’ll be everything to her, if she’ll let me,” he said.
Then the others came in. Vashti, her father, and Sidney from the porch, and Nathan from the back doorsteps, where he had been hugging his happiness by himself.
“Where’s M’bella?” demanded her uncle as they sat down. Vashti looked at Temperance for the answer.