“A person, coming into a town like Brookville to live, by rights had ought to have eyes in the backs of their heads,” Mrs. Black had observed.
It was at breakfast time, Lydia now remembered, and the minister was late, as frequently happened.
“I thought like’s not nobody would mention it to you,” Mrs. Black had further elucidated. “Of course he wouldn’t say anything, men-folks are kind of sly and secret in their doings—even the best of ’em; and you’ll find it’s so, as you travel along life’s path-way.”
Mrs. Black had once written a piece of poetry and it had actually been printed in the Grenoble News; since then she frequently made use of figures of speech.
“A married woman and a widow can speak from experience,” she went on. “So I thought I’d just tell you: he’s as good as engaged, already.”
“Do you mean Mr. Elliot?” asked Lydia incuriously.
Mrs. Black nodded.
“I thought you ought to know,” she said.
Mr. Elliot had entered the room upon the heels of this warning, and Lydia had promptly forgotten it. Now she paused for a swift review of the weeks which had already passed since her arrival. Mr. Elliot had been unobtrusively kind and helpful from the first, she remembered. Later, he had been indefatigable in the matter of securing workmen for the restoration of the old house, when she made it clear to him that she did not want an architect and preferred to hire Brookville men exclusively. As seemed entirely natural, the minister had called frequently to inspect the progress of the work. Twice in their rounds together they had come upon Jim Dodge; and although the clergyman was affable in his recognition and greeting, Lydia had been unpleasantly surprised by the savage look on her landscape-gardener’s face as he returned the polite salutation.
“Don’t you like Mr. Elliot?” she had ventured to inquire, after the second disagreeable incident of the sort.