For all that, Russell Langley had still somehow kept intact through all the years the heart of youth—almost of boyhood. Not that his parishioners were aware of it, except indirectly. Most of them regarded their beloved pastor and bore themselves towards him as if he had something like three score years to his credit—or debit. The boys and girls, it is true, the children and even the babies found him singularly companionable,—but so did the very oldest. The greybeards of the congregation and those who were contemporaries of Russell Langley’s grandparents talked to him as they would have talked to the latter had they been living and had their lines been cast in Farleigh instead of in Albany, New York. His youthful appearance impressed them only in the sense that he was a fine figure in the pulpit and a graceful presiding officer in the town hall whenever the services of such an one were required. His tall, slim, indolently erect figure was attributed to the fact that he had played base-ball at college, and the lack of lines in his face to freedom from family cares. For, when all is said, an invalid wife whom a clergyman sees no more frequently than an invalid parishioner and with whom he holds no conversation whatever is scarcely to be classed among family cares.
It was only the other Miller girl who recognised the elusive quality that made up a large part of the charm which everyone felt in the man. Likewise when this quality had taken flight, temporarily or irretrievably, it was Anna Miller who guessed the secret of its loss. Everyone knew that the minister had never forgotten his little daughter who had died. Ella May’s name was constantly upon his lips. But Anna said to herself that the light of enthusiasm in his eye and the buoyancy of his step had been largely due to the thought of a child toddling or tripping along beside him.
Then suddenly he had lost her, had lost his child-companion and with her the spirit of youth. Someone must have said to him—some idiot, some gump, some galoot, the girl reflected indignantly—that Ella May would have been—was it possible that she would have been twenty-five if she had lived? Twenty-five! Poor Mr. Langley! He couldn’t tote a person of twenty-five around with him leading her by the hand. It must have been a terrible shock to him to reach out for the golden-haired child and see a tall young lady with her hair put up and a college education! No wonder that he had grown old overnight, that his youth had fallen from him as if it had been something material, a mantle of slippery silk that had dropped from his shoulders at the loosing of a clasp.
Ah! but he should have it back. He should recapture it, the Reverend Russell Langley should, before it was beyond recall. He would renew his youth in the companionship of his youthful wife. Mrs. Langley was nearly forty-five, but she wouldn’t look over thirty at the most—probably not over twenty-five. And twenty-five in a wife is quite another thing than in a daughter. It was work and care and fuss and bother that made people grow old, and she hadn’t done a thing or had a care for nearly twenty-five years. Mrs. Langley had, as it were, lain upon rose leaves, gazed at the little pictured lamb (that was, alas! so much fairer than the marble image) and thought of all sorts of sweet and lovely things. She had suffered pain, of course, but that is refining and would only add a pensive, perhaps mournful charm to her flower-like beauty.
A week from the day of her visit to the minister’s lot in the cemetery, Mr. Langley passed the Miller house, bound for a conference at the academy, and the other Miller girl set forth for Farleigh, of which village the South Hollow was one end. As she drew near the parsonage, she saw a blue haze of smoke coming from the chimney of the summer kitchen. That meant that Big Bell was at work in that remote part of the house, and Anna’s feet flew.
As she came to a lane which extended a few rods from the avenue which was the main street of the village to a pine grove which was originally the western boundary of a large farm, she glanced up absently. The one house in the lane had been vacant during the summer, but within a few weeks a mother and daughter, a rather mysterious pair, had moved into it. Now she saw a young girl, who was dark and looked handsome in an haughty fashion, on the steps. Anna waved her hand in a friendly way. The girl inclined her small head proudly, rose and went into the cottage.
“I do believe she’s mad because I haven’t been in to see her,” Anna said to herself in dismay. “She’s about my age and I’m the one who would naturally do it. Of course, they wouldn’t let Mr. Langley in, but I’m different. Nobody would mind a little thing like me.”
She was tempted to run up the lane and tap at the door. But this afternoon was pledged to Mr. Langley and his girl-wife, and Anna regretfully left the lane behind her.
She opened the parsonage gate softly. If she could elude Bell the way was clear, for the front door stood open, and of course the screen door wouldn’t be fastened. Creeping up the walk, she tried it gently. It did not yield. Peeping in, she could just make out that it was hooked.
As she stood irresolute, she noticed a loose place where the wire netting was tacked to the wooden frame of door. It was too late for June-bugs, but the season was still like summer and if there were any chance, moth millers would fly in by the score as soon as the lamps were lighted and commit suicide in their harrowing way. Poor things! It seemed wicked to entice them to destruction.