“Ned will be glad to find you here Mr. Leacraft. It was only last night that Ned said he wondered if you had got rid of the business engagements that took you out west, and expressed himself willing to believe that if you had, you would not forget his invitation for Decoration Day at Gettysburg.” It was the voice of Mrs. Garrett, a little somnolent in quality, with a subdued melodiousness, and monotonously even in tone.
“Indeed, Mrs. Garrett, few things could have less readily escaped my mind. It has been an alleviation to think of it when I got bored with quarrelsome miners. Whatever good luck I have had in settling the mine troubles came from my own eagerness to get back to Baltimore,” and Leacraft turned with, actually, a very grave face towards the meditative Sally.
“Oh, Mr. Leacraft,” said that unconscionable woman, “we have Ned’s old classmate, Brig Barry, to go with us to Gettysburg. He is in the army, a lieutenant, who has fought Indians on the reservations, has lots of medals for bravery and is just the best thing in the way of a man you ever saw. I half think your English prejudices will be a little discouraged when you see him, or else you will love him as well as we do,” and this merciless compound of mischief and bewitching beauty looked out of her blue gray eyes with an absurd intimation of solitude which half made Leacraft forget manners.
“Yes,” acquiesced Mrs. Garrett, “Mr. Barry is a great favorite. I almost fear that Mr. Leacraft will find him unreasonably popular.”
“I am sure,” replied that rapidly aspiring sycophant, “that I ought to feel no inclination to impugn Miss Garrett’s good taste.”
This was so evident an affectation to shield a too obvious chagrin that the wicked object of the inuendo simply laughed outright and was vicious enough to reply that “she had never felt it necessary for her own comfort to have her own personal opinions endorsed by any one,” a cruel barb that lacerated the tender Englishman feelings immensely.
The next instant the front door opened with a rough shake, and a commotion of hurrying feet announced the arrival of Ned Garrett. Ned Garrett was a typical American of the best breed, and with the most unmistakable marks of that American suavity, sweetness and splendid confidence, not a whit tainted with assumption or vanity, which makes the American man the best type of man the world over. He, too, was tall and fair, with fascinating aplomb, and a frank surrender to the claim of friendship, without a too credulous endorsement of all social paper not readily negotiable. As he saw Leacraft he ran to him with a glad welcome of surprise and pleasure. “Good, Burney; I am right glad to see you. I knew you would not forget us, and you will have great reason to be satisfied with yourself for coming. The affair at Gettysburg to-morrow will be splendid. The President will give us something characteristic, the day will be the Nation’s, and the reunion of the veterans of both sides—you know this country once tried to strangle itself with its own hands—will be honored by a tremendous turn-out of people. I know,”—with a laugh,—“that you Englishmen hate crowds, unless they are turned to good account in celebrating the Lord Mayor’s day, or the jubilee of a king, or something swell and uninteresting, but it won’t hurt you to see the meaning of a great land’s reverence for its fallen dead,” and the big fellow full of enthusiasm, his handsome countenance dilated with pride, shook Leacraft’s hand, who was quite as delighted to greet his friend, whom he appreciated on his own account, without considering his influential relations to the desirable Sally.
Sally and her mother were now standing and, with, from the former a smile of approval and from the latter a gesture of satisfaction the two ladies departed, a servant appeared, and the young men ascended the stairs to prepare for dinner.
A variety of intentions had been coursing through Leacraft’s mind, and while ostensibly he was engaged in the commonplaces of address an interior agitation of plans and designs, all indubitably pointed towards the denouement of his visit, were tingling through his cerebral cortex with various success. He felt a sudden pressure of prudence assert itself, as if by some sort of psychological premonition he was made aware of the danger of temerity.
Left by Ned Garrett to assume the conventional apparel for dinner, and lingering with a delighted inspection of the details of his bedroom which he thought just reflected, to the nice point of a modest assertion of feminine adroitness, a really exquisite taste, he ran over the possible and best programme for the short campaign he felt it necessary to devise for the capture of the gentle and ethereal enemy. As he gazed, with increasing uneasiness, and poorly repressed envy at Henry’s piquant and picturesque colored sketches of “A Virginia Wedding,” and “The Departure of the Bride,” which offered themselves so suggestively between the white curtains on the saffron tinted paper, he came to this conclusion. He would that evening, if the occasion presented itself for a really favorable interview, let Sally know how much he thought of her, and how hopelessly unhappy he must become, if she could furnish him with no encouragement. That would do just now; but when they got to Gettysburg he might expect to find a convenient moment to be more explicit, indeed to urge her to the critical extremity of telling him what he might hope for.