As Tom had said, she looked tired, even though it was so early in the day; but she would not have allowed for an instant that she had anything to trouble her. Why should she have, when she had only to let Sam Willard, the butcher's assistant, know when she would be out for an hour in the evening, and there he would be at the corner waiting for her, with his fine air and his curled moustache and his hair in a curl on his forehead. And he had no end of money, he was always chinking a pocketful, and talking of what he should buy. Only on Saturday he had taken her round to look at the shops, and they had lingered a long time outside a jeweller's, and Sam had pointed out the ring he meant to give his sweetheart some day. Pattie had quite held her breath as she imagined her hand with that ring on it!
Now as she swept up the bedrooms she glanced at her hands and frowned. She was not very clever at keeping her hands nice, but she always excused herself with the plea that grates and wash-tubs and saucepans were to blame.
The hands that wore that ring would not be used for brooms and black-lead brushes! She wondered what furniture would be bought to match that ring!
And then, involuntarily, she thought of another Saturday evening when Tom had taken her to look at the shops, and they had lingered outside, not a jeweller's, but a furniture shop, and Tom had pointed out a tall Windsor arm-chair and said they would have two of those in their home, and she had pictured herself in one of those chairs by a bright fireside in a cosy kitchen with Tom opposite to her, reading his paper, while she had a bit of dainty white needlework in her lap, such as she had seen her last mistress, who was newly married, busy with. She remembered how, as she pictured that happy little fireside, she had made up her mind to keep her hands better, not for the wearing of jewelled rings, but for the accomplishment of that same dainty needlework.
As she thought of all this, Tom's face came back to her memory. She wished, oh, how she wished that she had looked round at him when her friend had whispered that he was on the other side of the road!
What had he looked like? Why should her friend look upon his face and she not see it?
"Oh, Tom! Tom!" she whispered to herself and a sudden hate towards that jewelled ring sprang up in her.
When the afternoon came and she wheeled little Maud out in her mail cart, she turned towards the shops. She felt as if to see that Windsor arm-chair again would be next best to seeing Tom.
But the Windsor arm-chair was gone. Gone, like the dream of the happy little home; gone, as Tom had gone, out of her life.
Its place was filled by an inexpensive plush-covered parlour suite, suitable to the little villa where the wearer of that jewelled ring should take up her abode, but Pattie turned from it petulantly.