Miss Loring, who appeared very domestic, with a stack of household linen beside her, glanced up, with a smile.
“Rather fortunate, isn’t it, considering––” an arch of the brows and a significant expression were allowed to finish her meaning. Mrs. Nesbitt pursed up her lips and shook her head.
“I really and truly wonder sometimes, Gertrude, if it’s going on like this always. Ten years if it’s a day since he commenced paying court there, and what she allows to do, at least is more than I can guess.”
“Marry him, no doubt,” suggested Gertrude, inspecting a sheet carefully, and then proceeding to tear it in widths 127 designated by Dr. Delaven for hospital bandages. “She certainly esteems him very highly.”
“Oh, esteem!” and Mrs. Nesbitt’s tone was dubious.
“Well, people don’t think much of getting married these days, where there is fighting and mourning everywhere.”
The older lady gave her a quick glance over the tow yarn rack, but the fair face was very serene, and without a trace of personal feeling on the subject.
“Yes, that’s so,” she admitted, “but I used to think they were only waiting till Kenneth came of age, or until he graduated. But my! I didn’t see it make a spec of difference. They danced together at the party given for him, and smiled, careless as you please, and now the dancing is ended, they keep on friendly and smiling, and I’m downright puzzled to know what they do mean.”
“Maybe no more than those two, who are only amusing themselves,” said Gertrude, with a glance towards the lawn where Evilena and Delaven were fencing with long stalks of a wild lily they had brought from the swamps, and when Evilena was vanquished by the foe her comforter was a white-haired gentleman, inclined to portliness, and with much more than an inclination to courtliness, whom Evilena called “My Judge.”
It was two weeks after the descent of Aunt Sajane and Evilena upon Loringwood. The former, after a long consultation with Dr. Delaven, had returned to her own home, near the McVeigh plantation, and putting her household in order for a more prolonged visit than at first intended, she had come back to be near Gertrude in case––