“Well,” replied her husband, with a sudden accession of earnestness in his voice, “if Sol’s right, ’twon’t be a bit funny if it don’t work. I hope the blessed boy’s got as much good stuff in him as I’ve always counted on. The bigger the heart, the wuss it hurts when it gets hit; an’ there’s a mighty big heart in any child of you an’ me, though I say it as mebbe I shouldn’t.”
“That boy ain’t never goin’ to have no heart-aches,—not on account o’ gals,” said the mother, whose voice also showed a sudden increase of earnestness. “I don’t b’lieve the gal was ever made that could say no to a splendid young feller like that,—a young feller that’s han’some an’ good an’ bright an’ full o’ fun, an’ that can tell more with his eyes in a minute than a hull sittin’-room-full of ord’nary young men can say with their tongues in a week.”
“No,” said the old man, soberly, “not if the gal stayed true to the pattern she was made on,—like you did, for instance. But gals is only human,—ther’ wouldn’t be no way of keepin’ ’em on earth if they wasn’t, you know,—an’ sometimes they don’t do ’xactly what might be expected of ’em.”
“That Tramlay gal won’t give him the mitten, anyhow,” persisted Mrs. Hayn. “Mebbe she ain’t as smart as some, but that family, through an’ through, has got sense enough to know what’s worth havin’ when they see it. She needn’t ever expect to come back here to board for the summer, if she cuts up any such foolish dido as that.”
“Lou Ann,” said the farmer, solemnly, “do you reely think it over an’ above likely that she’d want to come back, in such case made an’ pervided?”
Then both old people laughed, and went into the house, and talked of all sorts of things that bore no relation whatever to youth or love or New York. They retired early, after the manner of farm-people in general, after a prayer containing a formal and somewhat indefinite petition for the absent one. The old lady lay awake for hours, it seemed to her, her head as full of rosy dreams as if it were not covered with snow; yet when at last she was dropping asleep she was startled by hearing her husband whisper,—
“Father in heaven, have pity on my poor boy.”
CHAPTER X.
AGNES DINON’S PARTY.
Through several days spent listlessly except when dolefully, and through several restless nights, Philip Hayn was assisted by one hope that changed only to brighten: it was that nearer and nearer came the night of the party to which Miss Agnes Dinon had invited him,—the party at which he was sure he would again meet Lucia. Except for the blissful incident of the arrested drive on the Avenue, he had not seen her since the evening when he had raised her hand to his lips. How the thought of that moment sent the blood leaping to his own finger-tips! He had haunted the Avenue every afternoon, not daring to hope that the carriage would again be stopped in its course, but that at least he might see her passing face. As quick as a flash that day his eye, trained in country fashion to first identify approaching riders by their horses, had scanned the animals that drew the carriage, so that he might know them when next he saw them. But again and again was he disappointed, for spans on which he would have staked his reputation as being the same were drawing carriages that did not contain the face he sought. He might have been spared many heart-sinkings, as well as doubts of his horse-lore, had he known that the Tramlays did not keep a turn-out, but had recourse to a livery-stable when they wanted to drive.
He had even sought Lucia at church. He had known, since the family’s summer at Haynton, the name of the church which they attended, and thither he wended his way Sunday morning; but their pew was apparently farther back than the seat to which he was shown, for not one member of the Tramlay family could he see in front or to either side of him, and when the service ended and he reached the sidewalk as rapidly as possible he soon learned that the custom of rural young men to stand in front of churches to see the worshippers emerge was not followed at fashionable temples in the city.