‘They looked just for all the world like man and wife,’ said Trimmer, when he went back to his pantry, ‘and I hope before long it’ll be that. They’ll make a fine couple, and I’m sure they’re fond o’ one another already.’
‘It isn’t in Miss Laura to marry a man she wasn’t fond of, not for all the fortunes in Christendom,’ retorted Mrs. Trimmer, who had been cook and housekeeper nearly as long as her husband had been butler.
‘Well, if I was a young woman I’d marry a’most anybody rather than I’d lose such a ’ome as Hazlehurst Manor,’ answered Trimmer. ‘I ain’t a money-grubber, but a good ’ome ain’t to be trifled with. And if they don’t marry, and the estate goes to build a norsepital, what’s to become of you and me? Some folks in our position would be all agog for setting up in the public line and making our fortunes, but I’ve seen more fortunes lost than won that way, and I know when I’m well off. Good wages paid reg’lar, and everything found for me, is all I ask.’
After luncheon Laura and John went for a walk in the grounds. A mutual inclination led them to the shrubbery where they had parted that April night. The curving avenue of good old trees made a pleasant walk even at this season, when not a green leaf was left, and the ragged crows’ nests showed black amidst the delicate tracery of the topmost branches. The air was even milder than in the morning. It might have been an afternoon early in October. John Treverton stopped in front of the rugged trunk of the great chestnut under which Laura and he had parted. The young leaves had made a canopy of shade that night; now the big branches stood out dark and bare, stained with moss and weather. The grass at the foot of the tree was strewn with green husks and broken twigs, dead leaves and shining brown nuts.
‘I think it was at this spot we parted,’ said John. ‘Do you remember?’
‘I have a vague recollection that it was somewhere about here,’ Laura answered, carelessly.
She knew the spot to an inch, but was not going to admit as much.
He took her hand, and drew it gently through his arm, as if they were starting upon a pilgrimage somewhere, then bent his head and kissed the delicate bare hand—a lovely tapering hand that could only belong to a lady, a hand which was in itself something for a lover to adore.
‘Darling, when are we to be married?’ he asked softly, almost in a whisper, as if an unspeakable shyness took hold of him at that critical moment.
‘What a question!’ cried Laura, with pretended astonishment. ‘Who has ever talked about marriage? You have never asked me to be your wife.’