Miss Lydia sighed again. "I suppose I could make you comfortable, William."
"Do take me, Lydy," he entreated.
And somehow or other, before she quite knew it, she had consented.
As soon as the word was spoken, William arose with alacrity. "I don't like to be out in the night air," he said, "so I'll say good-night, Lydy. And, Lydy—shall we, for the moment, keep this to ourselves?"
"Oh yes," said Miss Lydia, getting very red, "I'd rather, for the present." Then, smiling and friendly, she went out with him, bare-headed, to the gate. There William hesitated, swallowed once, rubbed his hands nervously, and then suddenly gave her a kiss.
Miss Lydia Sampson jumped. "Oh!" she said; and again, "Oh!"
And then she ran back into the house, her eyes wet and shining, her face flushed to her forehead. She sat down by the table and put her hands over her eyes; she laughed, in a sort of sob, and her breath came quickly.
"I hadn't thought of it—that way," she whispered to herself. And somehow, as she sat there by her kitchen table, she began to think of it that way—Miss Lydia was very young! ... Oh, she would try and make him happy; she would try and be more orderly; she would try to be good, since her Heavenly Father had given back to her the old happiness.
And that night she did not bid the picture good-night.
Mr. Rives was himself not without emotion. It was many years, he reflected, since his lips had touched those of a female, and the experience was agreeable—so agreeable that he wished to repeat it as soon as possible; and, furthermore, he felt anxious to know that Lydia had put the gold in a safe place. But when he called the next day he was a little late, because, as he explained to Miss Lydia, he had had to wait for the mail. She met him with a new look in her innocent, eager eyes, and her face was shy and red. As she sat sewing, listening vaguely, she would glance at him now and then, as if, until now, she had not seen him since that day of parting, thirty-one years ago—the thirty-one years which had blotted Amanda's field from her memory. The old happiness, like a tide long withdrawn, was creeping back, rising and rising, until it was overflowing in her eyes. This puffy gentleman, with his tight, smiling mouth, was the William of her youth—and she had never known it until last night! She had thought of him during the last month or two only as an old friend who needed the care which her kind heart prompted her to give; and lo! suddenly he was the lover who would care for her.