With steady fingers she wrote upon the reverse of the envelope: “I cannot read this. Do not write again,” slipped it into a larger cover, addressed it, and, before the family was astir, sent Homer with it to the nearest letter box.
She had acted bravely, and, she believed, decisively, but she had blundered withal. An unopened letter, unaccompanied by a word of extenuation of the flagrant discourtesy, might damp the ardor of the most adoring lover. Yet March’s eyes were lit by a ray of affectionate amusement in receiving back this, the first love letter he had ever penned. He kissed the one-line sentence before putting the envelope away.
“Perhaps she is afraid of herself!” May had suggested sagely, à propos of Hetty’s avoidance of his visits.
The bright-natured suitor’s conclusion, after reading what was meant as a quietus to his addresses, was not dissimilar. If the case were hopeless she would have written nothing. Nevertheless, he bowed to the laconic: “Do not write again.” He did more than she had commanded. Without attempting to see Hetty again, he escorted his sister in the second week of July to Long Branch, and stayed there a fortnight, then went with her to Mt. Desert for ten days more.
The malign influence of a dog-day drought was upon Fairhill when the pair returned. The streets were deep in dust, the sun, a red and rayless ball, had rolled from east to west, and taken his own time in doing it, and was staining to a dingy crimson horizon-vapors that looked as dry as the dust, as brother and sister paused upon the piazza for a look over the familiar landscape.
“It is stifling after the seashore!” breathed May. “But it is home! I am glad to be back!”
“And I—always!”
March said it, in stooping, hat in hand, to kiss his mother. There was the ring of sincerity in his voice; his eyes were placid. He had come home to her cured of an ill-starred fancy for an ineligible girl. There was no sign of anything more than neighborly interest in his face when May asked at dinner-time how the Wayts were.
“Well, I believe,” replied Mrs. Gilchrist. “I have seen comparatively little of them while you were away, except at church. It has been too hot for visiting. Yesterday I took Hester out to drive. She misses you sadly, May. She is thinner and has less color than when you went away.”
“Dear little Queen Mab!” said Hester’s friend. “I must have her over to-morrow to spend the day. I have some books and sketches for her. And Hetty?”