"Yes, I know it," answered Miss Deborah. "I suppose it will all be arranged then. I asked Adele if Lois was engaged to him;—she said, 'Not formally.' But I've no doubt there's an understanding."
Miss Deborah was so sure of this that she had even mentioned it casually to Gifford, of course under the same seal of confidence with which it had been told her.
It was quite true that Dick and his mother were to return to Ashurst. After storming out of the rectory library the night of the Misses Woodhouse's dinner party, Dick had had a period of hatred of everything connected with Ashurst; but that did not last more than a month, and was followed by an imploring letter to Lois. Her answer brought the anger back again, and then its reaction of love; this see-saw was kept up, until his last letter had announced that he and his mother were coming to take the house they had had before, and spend the summer.
"We will come early," he wrote. "I cannot stay away. I have made mother promise to open the house in April, so in a month more I shall see you. I had an awful time to get her to come; she hates the country except in summer, but at last she said she would. She knows why I want to come, and she would be so happy if"—and then the letter trailed off into a wail of disappointment and love.
Impatient and worried, Lois threw the pages into the fire, and had a malicious satisfaction in watching the elaborate crest curl and blacken on the red coals. "I wish he'd stay away," she said; "he bothers me to death. I hate him! What a silly letter!"
It was so silly, she found herself smiling, in spite of her annoyance. Now, to feel amusement at one's lover is almost as fatal as to be bored by him. But poor Dick had no one to tell him this, and had poured out his heart on paper, in spite of some difficulty in spelling, and could not guess that he was laughed at for his pains.
Miss Deborah and Miss Ruth were rewarded for their walk into Ashurst by a letter from Gifford, which made them quite forget Mr. Denner's looks, and Mrs. Dale's bad taste in being a matchmaker.
He would be at home for one day the next week; business had called him from Lockhaven, and on his way back he would stay a night in Ashurst. The little ladies were flurried with happiness. Miss Deborah prepared more dainties than even Gifford's healthy appetite could possibly consume, and Miss Ruth hung her last painting of apple-blossoms in his bedroom, and let her rose jar stand uncovered on his dressing-table for two days before his arrival. When he came, they hovered about him with small caresses and little chirps of affection, as though they would express all the love of the months in which they had not seen him.
Gifford had thought he would go to the rectory in the evening, and somehow the companionship of his aunts while there had not occupied his imagination; but it would have been cruel to leave them at home, so after tea, having tasted every one of Miss Deborah's dishes, he begged them to come with him to see Dr. Howe. They were glad to go anywhere if only with him, and each took an arm, and bore him triumphantly to the rectory.
"Bless my soul," said Dr. Howe, looking at them over his glasses, as they came into the library, "it is good to see you again, young man! How did you leave Helen?" He pushed his chair back from the fire, and let his newspapers rustle to the floor, as he rose. Max came and sniffed about Gifford's knees, and wagged his tail, hoping to be petted. Lois was the only one whose greeting was constrained, and Gifford's gladness withered under the indifference in her eyes.