CHAPTER XXIII
ON MARKET DAY
Just as the city clocks struck ten on the last Saturday morning of January of the year of which we write, Dr. Camperdown came down the steps and into the street from the large, stone building known as the post office.
His hands were full of letters and papers that he had just taken from his private box in the post office, and which he stuffed into his pockets, as he carefully picked his steps among the various boxes, and bundles, and numberless things in the way of encumbrances with which the sidewalk was almost blocked.
The scene was not new to him. He was looking about him absently rather than attentively, till he caught sight of Stargarde coming over the crossing from the near Provincial Building, accompanied by her solemn black dog. She had a little basket on her arm, and was evidently about to follow the custom of many Halifax housekeepers who on Saturday mornings do their marketing themselves.
A glad light, almost instantly repressed, leaped to his face when he saw her. “Good-morning,” he said, quietly touching his cap, and acting as though he were about to pass her by.
“Are you not going to speak to me?” she inquired with a gracious smile and extending a hand to him. “I wish to praise you a little.”
“For what?” he inquired, opening his eyes, through which he had been looking in a squinting fashion at her.
“For your goodness in not coming to see me. I think I shall have to start a system of cards of merit, and bestow them upon you at regular intervals.”
He smiled peculiarly. “I mustn’t take too much credit to myself; you have given me a new interest in life.”
“Yes; Zeb. I am longing to talk to you about her. Can you not walk about with me while I do my marketing? then we can have a little talk afterward. You don’t stay in your office Saturday mornings, I think.”