CHAPTER V.
Mr. Wayt availed himself of an early opportunity to make known his intention to take no vacation that year. He “doubted the expediency of midsummer absences on the part of suburban pastors.” While many residents of Fairhill went abroad and to fashionable resorts in America in July and August, a respectable minority was content to remain at home, and some of the vacated cottages and villas were taken by city people, to whom the breezy heights and shaded lawns were a blessed relief from miles of scorching stone and brick. He “foresaw both foreign and domestic missionary work in his own parish,” he said to his session in explaining his plans for the summer campaign.
The resolution was politic and strengthened his hold upon his new charge. Not to be outdone in generosity, the people redoubled their affectionate attentions to their spiritual leader. Fruits, flowers, and all manner of table dainties poured into the parsonage; carriages came daily to offer airings to Mrs. Wayt and the children, and on the Fourth of July a pretty phaëton and gentle horse were sent as “a gift to the mistress of the manse,” from a dozen prominent parishioners.
“Verily, my cup runneth over.”
A real tear dropped upon Mr. Wayt’s shirt front as he uttered it falteringly on the afternoon of the holiday. Yet he had been repeating the words at seasonable intervals, and more or less moistly, since the hour of the presentation.
The Gilchrists were upon the eastern veranda, the embowering vines of which were beginning to rustle in the sea breeze. All had arisen at the pastor’s appearance, and March set a chair for him.
“I have thought, sometimes, that I had some command of language,” he continued unctuously. “To-day I have no words save those laid to my use by the Book of books—‘My cup runneth over.’ It is not one of my foibles to expatiate upon the better ‘days that are no more.’ The trick is common and cheap. But to you, my best friends, I may venture to confide that my dear wife and I were brought up in what I have since been disposed to characterize as ‘mistaken luxury.’ Since the unselfish saint joined her blameless lot with mine she has never had a carriage of her own until to-day. I can receive favors done to myself with a manly show of gratitude. Appreciation of my wife makes a baby of me.”
“By this time he should be in his second childhood, then, for everybody likes mamma,” piped a familiar voice from within the French window of the library. Glancing around with a start that was not theatrical, he espied his eldest born established at her ease in a low chair. Her feet were on a stool; she wore a white gown, and May’s white Chudda shawl covered her from the waist downward; her hair was a mesh of gold thread that drew to it all the light of the dying day. May sat on a cushion in the window and linked Hester in her comparative retirement with the veranda group.
“Ah, little one, are you there?” said the fond parent playfully. “I missed you from the dinner table and might have guessed that you could be nowhere but here.”
Profound silence ensued, and lasted for a minute. Hester shrank into herself with a blush visible even in the shadowy interior.