Mr. Tuxbury stepped forward with decision, and began fumbling in his pocket for a match. “Of course you cannot find one in the dark, Mrs. Maxwell,” said he, with open exasperation.
She said nothing more, but stood meekly in the hall until a light flared out from a room on the left. The lawyer had found a lamp, he was himself somewhat familiar with the surroundings, but on the way to it he stumbled over a chair with an exclamation. It sounded like an oath to Mrs. Field, but she thought she must be mistaken. She had never in her life heard many oaths, and when she did had never been able to believe her ears.
“I hope you didn't hurt you,” said she, deprecatingly, stepping forward.
“I am not hurt, thank you.” But the twinge in the lawyer's ankle was confirming his resolution to say nothing more to her on the subject of his regret and unwillingness that she should choose to refuse his hospitality, and spend such a lonely and uncomfortable night. “I won't say another word to her about it,” he declared to himself. So he simply made arrangements with her for a meeting at his office the next morning to attend to the business for which there had been no time to-night, and took his leave.
“I never saw such a woman,” was his conclusion of the story, which he related to his sister upon his return home. His sister was a widow, and just then her married daughter and two children were visiting her.
“I wish you'd let me know she wa'n't comin',” said she. “I cut the fruit cake an' opened a jar of peach, an' I've put clean sheets on the front chamber bed. It's made considerable work for nothin'.” She eyed, as she spoke, the two children, who were happily eating the peach preserve. She and her brother were both quite well-to-do, but she had a parsimonious turn.
“I'd like to know what she'll have for supper,” she remarked further.
“I didn't ask her,” said the lawyer, dryly, taking a sip of his sauce. He was rather glad of the peach himself.
“I shouldn't think she'd sleep a wink, all alone in that great old house. I know I shouldn't,” observed the children's mother. She was a fair, fleshy, quite pretty young woman.
“That woman would sleep on a tomb-stone if she set out to,” said the lawyer. His speech, when alone with his own household, was more forcible and not so well regulated. Indeed, he did not come of a polished family; he was the only educated one among them. His sister, Mrs. Low, regarded him with all the deference and respect which her own decided and self-sufficient character could admit of, and often sounded his praises in her unrestrained New England dialect.