During the first fortnight of his engagement to Jill, his own nature took a sudden late blossoming. His gruff voice became a shade lower and more refined in tone, and even Jonathan, his hard-working factotum, ceased to fear Silas.
Master and man were very busy, putting the tiny cottage in order, for the wedding was to be in another week.
On a certain Saturday evening, as Silas was standing in the middle of his flower-beds, contemplating a late crop of enormous carnations, and considering how many boxes he could fill with cut blooms for his Monday’s market, he heard the click of the gate at the far end of the garden path, and saw an elderly woman in a poke bonnet and long cloak advancing to meet him.
“Giminy! ef it ain’t Aunt Hannah!” he muttered under his breath, “Now, whatever’s bringing her bothering round?”
He walked down the path as he spoke, and held out his big hand to his relation.
“Wot’s this I hear, Silas?” said his aunt; “that you’re going to, contract marriage with an unbeliever?”
The little woman had an anxious, wizened face. It was raised now with a world of commiseration in it to Silas.
The man felt so happy that he absolutely smiled down at the audacious little intruder.
“That’s all you know,” he began.