“To-day at two-thirty!” ejaculated Miss Keith, who, mind you, had been more than ready for ten days; “then there’s no time to fix up the living room, or do more than sweep and tidy up and get dinner,—they will have to put up with the kitchen for once. Why do they get out at Stonebridge? It is three miles farther than Gilead Station, and a closed carriage means one of Bisbee’s hacks, for the rockaway must go too for the help. Has that boy of his gone?” Stead hurried to the road, but the boy was disappearing down the third hill at a pace that forbade recall.
“I will go down and order the carriage for you,” Stead volunteered, “and tell them to put in hot stones and plenty of rugs; it’s a cold drive from Stonebridge, but they come that way doubtless because the express stops there and not at Gilead. They could not bring a man in Mr. Lawton’s condition so long a journey in a way train.”
“If you would, I should be so relieved, and one thing more. I know you make a point of keeping away from folks, especially women, and these are strangers to you; but they’ll be so worried likely as not they’ll hardly notice you. Now would you be so good as to meet them and see they find the carriage and get properly started, and tell Bisbee to keep to the lower road in spite of the trolley until they reach the third hill? It’s far less jolty and better shovelled out.
“You see Brooke says, ‘Please meet us,’ and it doesn’t look hospitable to send an empty hack, as if it was to meet a funeral; besides which there wouldn’t be room, and I can’t spare the time, though, as I suppose the boy is small, they could set him between.”
“Yes, I will go to meet them,” answered Stead, hesitating a moment and still looking at the telegram, which he folded absent-mindedly and dropped into his pocket. “I do not think you need fear seeing Mrs. Lawton. I knew her family and met her once long ago; she is a gentlewoman to her finger-tips, and such are never overbearing,” and after making this unusually long speech Silent Stead went out for his horse, Tatters bounding in front of him joyously, for dogs and children always swarmed about the lonely man whenever they had the chance, and they alone, Dr. Russell excepted, were welcome at his retreat on Windy Hill.
Like many capable people, who fuss aimlessly when there is really little to do, but bring their best efforts to bear swiftly under stress, Miss Keith set in motion certain necessary preparations for an afternoon meal, which should be a compromise between a country dinner and supper, and then went to the south parlour, until a few days ago her pride and the most precise best room in the neighbourhood, and sitting quietly down with hands folded in her lap, took a final survey.
Something had suddenly changed her attitude toward the room. She ceased thinking of it as her state apartment, sacred to sewing society meetings and the more formal and rare social function of a high tea to welcome the wife of a new minister, and now looked at it as it was to be, the bedroom to which her Cousin Adam was coming for rest, and as she sat there it occurred to her that it was the very room in which he had been born.
Then there stole over her one of those subtle inspirations called intuition, with which the Creator has blessed woman as a token of sympathy with their weaknesses and a reward for much unspoken suffering, and thereby more than bridged the difference of her physical inequality with man. If the hope was to bring Adam Lawton back to himself, what could be more suitable than that the surroundings should be those of his early youth?