“I mean that the boy comes here now an then, not courting the girl, as I take it, at all, and shows so far no signs of anything amiss, and had, in my opinion, best be let alone. Lord, when I was his age, if a girl like Lucina had been in the question, and anybody had tried to rein me up short, I'd have kicked over the breeches entirely. I'd have either got her or blown my brains out. That boy can take care of himself, anyhow. He'll stop coming here of his own accord, if he thinks he'd better.”
Abigail sniffed scornfully with her thin nostrils.
“Wait and see,” said the Squire.
“I shall wait a long time before I see,” she said, but she was mistaken. The very next week Jerome did not come, then a month went by and he had not appeared once at the Squire's house.
Chapter XXIX
One Sunday afternoon, during the latter part of July, Lucina Merritt strolled down the road to her aunt Camilla's. The day was very warm—droning huskily with insects, and stirring lazily with limp leaves.
There had been no rain for a long time, and the road smoked high with white dust at every foot-fall. Lucina raised her green and white muslin skirts above her embroidered petticoat, and set her little feet as lightly as a bird's. She carried a ruffled green silk parasol to shield herself from the sun, though her hat had a wide brim and flapped low over her eyes.
Her mother had remonstrated with her for going out in the heat, since she had not looked quite well of late. “You will make your head ache,” said she.
“It is so cool in Aunt Camilla's north room,” pleaded Lucina, and had her way.
She walked slowly, as her mother had enjoined, but it was like walking between a double fire of arrows from the blazing white sky and earth; when she came in sight of her aunt Camilla's house her head was dizzy and her veins were throbbing.