“That, I should say, is something for me to do instead of you.”
“Well, it is preliminary to what I am to do.”
“I never do that, Clara—well, yes, I promise you, provided always it is not something absolutely absurd. What do you wish?”
“You said you had not read Jaques. I want you to read it carefully, just as I have done, and then if, in your judgment, it is a bad book for me to have read, I promise while I remain here to read nothing without your permission.”
Miss Marston crammed the brochure into her dress pocket, saying, “I like your trust in me, but you will be disappointed. I shall be forced to condemn, I know; but I will be fair; and now please to be careful how you call me a liberal. It is a very equivocal compliment for a lady.”
“Are not angels liberals?” asked Clara, smiling, the little wrinkles gathering about her pretty eyes as she spoke.
“I am not acquainted with the private opinions of that fraternity,” said Miss Marston, wondering what next.
“Because if you are, I always call you a liberal.” Miss Marston smiled, kissed Clara’s cheek, and walked on. She was a good little woman, who had drank rather deeply at the bitter fountains of life. She was in a safe haven now, and being a studious and conscientious teacher, did her work nobly and well.
CHAPTER VII.
DAN’S BUSINESS OPERATIONS.
Oakdale some years ago was a very old-fashioned village, built around the traditional “common,” facing which were two taverns, one called the “Rising Sun,” several country stores, a printing-office, many residences, more or less elegant, and the Congregationalist church. The Methodist was on a side street, and the Universalist, which had once occupied a position on the common itself, had been moved off to satisfy the tastes, and possibly the prejudices, of the citizens; for the Universalist was not the popular church of Oakdale, though its preachers generally “drew” well, the doctor said, among the floating population, and those who stubbornly refused to identify themselves with any sect whatever. Dr. Forest went sometimes to this unpopular church, but Mrs. Forest was a staunch member of the Congregationalist—the only one having any pretence to respectability in her eyes. In time Oakdale changed wonderfully, and some two years after Clara’s entrance into Stonybrook College, it had become quite a manufacturing centre, for the railroad had brought new vitality into the old-fashioned town. It was now a city; boasted two rival newspapers, three paved thoroughfares, and several nice brick sidewalks. The doctor’s business shared the common prosperity. Mrs. Forest delighted her soul in the multiplying cares incident upon the gratification in some degree of her social ambition. The twins were quite large girls, attending school in the village. Leila, who boasted that she was the elder, as she was by an hour or so, led her sister by the nose, figuratively speaking, being pretty and selfish, and therefore a tyrant. These precious sisters quarreled from their cradle up; yet they were attached to each other by a bond, not so palpable but hardly less effective, than that uniting the famous Siamese brothers, for they pined if separated for a single day; though their reunion was often followed by a disagreement that ended in fiery recrimination, if not in uprooted curls. Oh, those twins! Nature had somehow so exhausted herself in producing their bodies that there was no force left for their souls, which Dinah “clar’d to God” were wholly wanting. This was not true of Linnie, at least, for she was generally sweet in her temper, as well as kind and obliging, when in her best moods.