“What a darling!” exclaimed Miriam, half under her breath as the two bent over the little one with eyes full of loving admiration.
“Isn’t she? the dear, tiny, helpless thing!” murmured Serena, just touching her lips to the velvet cheek. “Ah, Miriam dear, how happy I am!” she sighed, when they had gone back to the porch and resumed their seats. “I couldn’t wish anything better for you than such a wifehood and motherhood as mine: two such darling children, and a husband so tenderly careful of his wife, so kind and affectionate as mine.”
“I am very glad for you, Serena,” Miriam said in reply. “I think you have won a prize in the matrimonial lottery; but I can scarcely expect to do so well; therefore, my better plan will be to remain single.”
“Oh, no, indeed you must not! I am very sure you can do—perhaps not quite, but very nearly as well, if you choose,” returned Serena, with a laughing glance into her friend’s face. “He’s deeply in love, Mirry; there’s no doubt about it; the doctor and I have both seen it for some time past.”
“You are talking in riddles,” Miriam said, smiling and blushing in spite of herself. Then a look of keen distress came into her face.
“Mirry, you are in trouble,” Serena said, taking her friend’s hand and squeezing it affectionately in her own. “Tell me what it is, dear, and let me sympathize, and help, too, if I can.”
“I came, intending to tell you,” faltered Miriam, “and to ask advice of the doctor—not professional; but it’s partly a business matter, and I can’t bear to speak of it to Ronald or Sandy; though, indeed, I cannot—oh, it would be impossible!—I never, never could; there is, after all, but one course open to me; and yet—and yet—”
“What is it, dear?” asked Serena, as Miriam broke off abruptly, hiding her face in her hands, while the hot blood mounted to her very hair. “If it’s anything Alonzo can help you in, he will do it most gladly, I am sure. He’s away for to-day at Fairfield, or near there; I expected him home this morning, but had a telegram awhile ago saying he couldn’t leave a very sick patient till to-morrow. Oh,” arriving at an inkling of the truth by a sudden intuition, “it’s that horrid Bangs! I know it is! Have him? No, of course you couldn’t! ’twould be worse than death by far!”
“Yes, Serena; oh, a thousand times worse!” Miriam exclaimed, dropping her hands and fixing anguished eyes on her friend’s face. “But oh, you don’t know what mischief—not to me only, but to those dearer than myself—he now has it in his power to do!”
“What, Mirry? what can he have it in his power to do to you in this free country?” queried Serena, both look and tone expressing surprise and dismay, along with some slight incredulity.