“Don’t allude to it this evening!” she enjoined upon him. “Nothing is in worse taste than to use a first call as a lever for selfish ends. I’ll run in to-morrow morning, and try my powers of persuasion. Meantime, get your canvas and palette ready.”
Hetty’s spirits rose when she perceived that the exciting topic was avoided. The four were in the swing of merry converse when the clock struck nine, and, as if he had waited for the signal, Mr. Wayt walked in. March, who sat by Hetty, saw her stiffen all over, and her eyes sink to the floor. Hester began to cough irrepressibly—a hard, dry hack, to quiet which Hetty went to get a glass of water. The pallor of the pastor’s face had a bilious tinge; his eyes were sunken, his whole appearance haggard and wild. Yet his greeting to the guests was effusive, his flow of language unabated. Neither daughter nor sister-in-law offered to second him. Hester’s roses faded, the ever present fold between her eyebrows was almost a scowl. Hetty was coldly imperturbable, and the Gilchrists soon made a movement to go.
Mr. Wayt stepped forward airily to accompany them to the door, Hetty falling into the rear and parting from them with a grave bow upon the threshold of the sitting room.
“My regards to your estimable parents,” said the host on the porch, his pulpit tone carrying far through the night. “A clerical friend of mine dubbed Judge Aaron Hollingshed of Chicago, an active elder in his church, and his wife, who was a true mother in Israel—‘Aaron and her!’ I already, in spirit, apply the like titles to Judge and Mrs. Gilchrist. It is such spirited support as theirs that upholds the hands of the modern Moses against the Amaleks of the day. Thank you for calling, and good-night to you both.”
CHAPTER IV.
May Gilchrist had not overestimated her persuasive powers. A call on Mrs. Wayt, undertaken as soon as she had seen, from her watch window, the tall, black figure of the clergyman issue from his gate, and take his way down-town, won his wife’s sanction to the presence of her sister and daughter in the orchard that afternoon to watch Miss Gilchrist’s brother upon a sketch he proposed to begin before the apple blossoms fell.
“I shall be there, of course,” the young diplomatist mentioned casually. “I am studying art in an amateurish way, under my brother’s direction. I dearly enjoy seeing him paint. His hand is so firm and rapid, and his eye so true! Your daughter tells me she is fond of drawing. March and I would be only too happy to render any assistance in our power to forward her studies in that line.”
“My sister has spoken to me of your kindness and his,” Mrs. Wayt answered thoughtfully. “She told me also that she had referred the question of accepting Mr. Gilchrist’s generous proposition to me. Hesitation seems ungracious, but my poor child is very excitable, and in nerve so unfit to work long at anything that I have doubted the expediency of allowing her to become interested in her favorite pursuit to the extent necessary for the acquisition of any degree of skill.”