"It helps," she replied demurely. "But Old Sol always does his share."
"Well," he said dryly, "in my case the order will have to be changed. I expect to go into the plum business in June."
"It is said to be a very fine industry," she said, looking downwards and pulling the petals from the twig of lilac that she had broken from a neighboring bush; "but in all conscience, I always thought you army men looked down upon trade."
"No, indeed," he returned, smiling broadly, as he took in the humor of the situation. "I don't believe in looking down upon any honest calling, even raising plums."
And they both went off in a peal of laughter, though before she was through, Maud's eyelids glistened with tears.
CHAPTER XL.
"So he thinks that a flower severed from the soil and placed in the shade will flourish as well as in its native sunlight," Maud mused after he went away that morning. "Had he a special meaning I wonder?—and about balances, his words contained one sure enough. What is that English home of his like, anyway? And his people, sedate and punctilious, just as my mother says hers were? No wonder he talked about the shade. They say over there it rains seventy days and shines seven. If I had let him he would have asked me to give up our glorious sunshine again. Ah, me, life is a funny problem anyway! There's the east and the west, and here I am in the middle. Gadzooks! as my father would say, I wish I knew what to do. I suppose the Doctor will be coming back soon—to buy new clothes of course! Funny, how he took me at my word when I set him down last year. Since then, although endearing enough, he never talks out and out of love—waiting till he comes, I suppose—and not very definite upon that either. Perhaps some dusky maiden in the west may yet steal the young man's heart away. What of Little Moon, the Ojibway chief's daughter, that he raved about in one of his letters? Pshaw! She would never suit Beaumont! Well! I like Major Morris with his English drawl, his bravery, his knee breeches, and his shade out of sunlight. And I like Dr. Beaumont with his passion, his Mon Dieu's, his life in the glorious west, and his controlled faithfulness. But by my faith, do I love either well enough for marriage? Ah, there's the rub, Maud Maxwell! What a little minx you are anyway, not to know your own mind better than that!"
Impatiently she tossed off her hat and finished fixing her tulips. But she did it with unusual care that morning, and an hour afterwards her mother said she never saw them so beautifully arranged before.
The preparation for Eugenia's wedding monopolized the long hours during those May days; and Maud did not have much time for thought. There were clothes to select, gowns to make, milliners and dressmakers to see, boots and gloves fresh from England to be examined and selected with a connoisseur's eye; and in all Maud did her part.
Eugenia, too, had set her heart on seeing her sister marry the Major, and having settled all the preliminaries of her own nuptials in her own decided and placid way, she was prepared during the little time that remained to devote herself to furthering her sister's interests. Hence, instead of retreating to a quiet corner each evening with her lover, the Major and Maud invariably made two of her party; and so intense was Dr. Fairchilds' devotion, that anything that Genie suggested immediately became law.