“Good enough for me!” she exclaimed. “He! Sometimes I wonder if it is right for me to be so happy. I feel almost as if it was wrong. As if something must happen to punish me for it.”
I did not answer. To tell the truth, I was envious. There was real happiness in the world. This country girl had found it; that Mabel Colton would, no doubt, find it some day—unless she married her Victor, in which case I had my doubts. But what happiness was in store for me?
Nellie did most of the talking thereafter; principally about George, and why he did not come. At last she went in to see if Mother needed her, and, twenty minutes later, when I looked into the bedroom, I saw that she had fallen asleep on the couch. Mother, too, seemed to be sleeping, and I left them thus.
It was almost eleven o'clock when the sound of carriage wheels in the yard brought me to the window and then to the door. Doctor Quimby had come at last and Taylor was with him. The doctor, in his mackintosh and overshoes, was dry enough, but his companion was wet to the skin.
“Sorry I'm so late, Ros,” said the doctor. “I was way up to Ebenezer Cahoon's in West Denboro. There's a new edition of Ebenezer, made port this morning, and I was a little bit concerned about the missus. She's all right, though. How's your mother?”
“Better, I think. She's asleep now. So is Nellie. I suppose George told you she was with her.”
“Yes. George had a rough passage over that West Denboro road. It's bad enough in daylight, but on a night like this—whew! I carried away a wheel turning into Ebenezer's yard, and if George hadn't had his team along I don't know how I'd have got here. I'll go right in and see Mrs. Paine.”
He left us and I turned to Taylor.
“You're soaked through,” I declared. “Come out to the kitchen stove. What in the world made you drive way up to that forsaken place? It's a good seven miles. Come out to the kitchen. Quick!”
He sat down by the stove and put his wet boots on the hearth. I mixed him a glass of the brandy and hot water and handed him a cigar.