He did not wait for me to answer, but went on:
“Six months ago Mr. Rand, my old employer and then partner, died, and for some good or favor he fancied I had done him, he left me £50,000, which, with what I already had, made me a rich man, and then I began to think of home and the little cousin who, I said, must be a dried-up old maid by this time.”
At this I winced and tried to draw back from Tom, but he held me fast, while his rare smile broke all over his face as he went on:
“I thought I’d like to know just how you did look, and so wrote for your photograph, which, when it came, astonished me, it was so young and pretty and girlish; not in the least old maidish, as I feared it might be——”
“Tom, Tom—are you crazy?” I cried, wrenching my hands from his. “I’m not pretty; I’m not girlish; I’m not young; and I am an old maid of thirty-two.”
“Yes, yes, very true. I know your age to a minute, for didn’t we use to compare notes on that point when you brought up your seniority of ten months as a reason why you should domineer over and give me fits. I knew you were thirty-two, but you’d pass for twenty-five. Why, I’m ten years older than you now, with my bushy head, and tawny face, and brawny chest. Look at the difference, will you?” And leading me to the mirror he showed me the picture it reflected—picture of a tall, broad-shouldered, brown-faced, brown-haired man, who might have been thirty-five, and by his side, not quite reaching his shoulder, the petite figure of a woman whose forehead and lips were very pale, whose cheeks were very red, whose eyes were bright with excitement, and whose wavy hair was not unbecoming even if it was all tumbled and tossed, and falling about her face and neck.
That was Tom and I, and when, with his mischievous smile shining on me from the glass he asked: “Well Mousey, what do you think of us?” I answered with a dash of my old sauciness: “I think you look like a great shaggy bear, and I like a little cub.”
He laughed aloud at that and said: “You are very complimentary, but I’ll forgive you for once, and go on with my story, which was interrupted at the point where I received the photograph, which astonished me so much that I determined to come home and see if it was correct. And, as you know, I came, and wishing to surprise you gave no warning of my coming, but hunted up your lodgings, and felt utterly confounded when I was ushered into this little back third floor room, and was told you had occupied it for years, and not only that, but that you gave music lessons for a living, and had gone out to hunt up scholars. I don’t think I quite swore, but I did tear round a little, and bade the woman make up a roaring fire against your return, and told her I was going to dine with you. You ought to have seen her twist her apron, and heard her stammer and hesitate as she told me ‘Miss Burton didn’t mostly have dinners nowadays;’ meaning, of course, that you couldn’t afford it. I believe I did say d——, with a dash, under my breath, but I gave her a sovereign, and told her to get up the best dinner possible for the time, for I was hungry as forty bears. She courtesied almost to the floor and departed, but upon my soul I believe they think me a burglar or something dreadful, for one or the other of them has been on this floor watching me slyly to see that I was not rummaging your things.”
While he talked I was trying to dry my wet boots which, like Lady Darinda, he spied at last and exclaimed, “Why, child, how wet your boots are. Why do you not change them? You will surely take cold. Go now and do it.”
I did not tell him they were all I had, but he must have guessed it from my manner, and looking sharply at me as if he would wring the truth from me, he said: “Norah, are these your only boots?”