"A queer woman, that," Mr. Hayward one day remarked as I came up from the landing after setting her ashore, "and tending to show that what people think, they will do. If her name, now, had been something beside Snuffe, she would never have thought of using the stuff as she does."
"Why, what has that to do with it?" I asked, not seeing the connection.
"After she got married, much thinking of the name of Snuffe, and some worrying about it, she says, caused her to help herself to a pinch now and then out of pure perversity of spirit, until in the end she got to like it, so that now she can scarce finish a prayer without a sly dip into her bag."
"Her husband might have changed his name; he would not have had to look far for a better one," I answered, to see what he would say.
"Oh, Snuffe is as good as any, and the family will be a power in the land some day. The old man will not eat anything he can find a market for, and there is no surer way to get on than that if one has the patience to stick to it."
Constance, who was always in my thoughts, I grew to love more and more as the years passed, and as Mrs. Hayward had her much at our house, scarce a day went by without my seeing her. When she stayed to supper, which was often the case, I would take her home; and of these journeyings I remember every one, and what we said, which was not much, for we were but little given to speech when in each other's company. Her visits clothed our little home with such a halo of romance and delight, that my heart swells to this day when I think of it. For my belief in her knew no bounds, and, like my love, grew stronger as we grew to be man and woman. This not strangely, for at sixteen she was such perfection of loveliness that there was no joy like that of being near her, and if I but touched her hand, heaven itself, I thought, could not convey greater happiness. Yet, strangely enough, I could not have told the color of her eyes, if indeed they were always the same, which I knew they were not. Nor could I have described her mouth, except that it expressed such tenderness that its like was never seen before. Of her face this I know, that it was oval, but of her complexion, it was of such delicacy of white and pink that no one could describe it, nor have conceived anything so perfect. Her hair, too, like her eyes, could not be described, but was ever taking on some different phase or color, so that if you thought you knew its every shade of loveliness, some new light or manner of arrangement would add beauties to it not before dreamed of. Such, you must know, was Constance, my sweet love, at the time of which I speak.
CHAPTER XLIX
THE BETROTHAL
Amid surroundings such as I have described three years passed, and happily for me, and to my great good then and for all time. Indeed, I do not look back to any period of my life with greater pleasure, for it was filled with Constance and thoughts of her and nothing else. My bed, once too long, was now too short, yet I would not change it in any way. Lying there, the pattering rain sang of my love, and at night the sighing and chattering wind lulled me to sleep with thoughts of her.
Thus I lay one midsummer night, listening to the whir and beating of a great storm that had come up suddenly from out the south, after the day had closed. Above the roar of the wind and the splash of the water on the roof, I could plainly hear the wash of the river as it beat on our shore, and this as if to add to the strength and rhythm of the storm. If by chance the wind abated for a moment, the rain fell anew, and in torrents, as if the deluge were come again. Then, it in turn showing some pause, the wind would spring up afresh, and in such fury that the windows and logs of the house trembled as if shaken by an earthquake.