CHAPTER XLVII.
ROY FINDS EDNA.
Edna had promised Georgie that not a long time should elapse before she would make herself known to Roy and his mother. She had also promised Uncle Phil an early visit to Rocky Point; and within a week or so after Jack’s departure for Europe, she asked and obtained permission from Mrs. Churchill to go to her old home. It was very lonely at Leighton without her; and Roy found the time hanging heavily on his hands, and was trying hard to make himself believe that his property at Rocky Point required personal looking after, when he received through Miss Pepper a letter from Edna, expressing her sympathy with him in his recent loss, and saying that if he would come to Allen’s Hill, at such a time, she would be there to meet him.
Roy had not heard from Edna before in a long, long time. Indeed, she had written to him but once since his engagement with Georgie. Then she had sent him a hundred dollars toward the payment of her debt, and had said a few words about his intended marriage, hoping he might be happy with his bride, but declining to tell him where she was living. And that was all he knew of her; and he was not quite as enthusiastic on the subject as he had once been. Miss Overton was his absorbing thought. Still he felt glad that at last he was to see and know his mysterious sister-in-law, and felt especially glad of any excuse which would take him away from home and into the vicinity of Rocky Point; for he meant to go there first. It would be only a short run from Albany, and detain him but a day at the most, and Brownie was sure to be glad to see him. It is true she had never said much to him of Edna, or evinced any great interest in her; but she would be glad because he was glad; and he hoped the two young girls would like each other; for of course Edna would now live at Leighton, which was also to be Brownie’s home forever. He had settled that last point satisfactorily with himself, and he meant to settle it with Brownie before long. Georgie herself had hinted it to him. Georgie had been willing, and had bidden him not to wait because she was dead. And he would not; he would speak to her and tell her of his love; and if she could love him in return, they would wait a reasonable time, and then he would make her his wife, and install her mistress of Leighton, where Edna should always have a place as the sister of the house.
This was his plan; and he found his pulse quickening as he drew near to Rocky Point, where he expected to find his Brownie. But the bird had flown,—had gone, Uncle Phil said, to visit some of her kin. And when Roy asked where her kin lived, the old man answered, “Oh, in forty places. She is goin’ to Albany first, and then to Schenectady, and Utica, and Canestoty, and Syracuse, and Auburn, for what I know. You’d better let her run a spell whilst you hunt up t’other one; two gals at a lick is too much.”
There was a knowing twinkle in Uncle Phil’s eyes; but it was lost on Roy, who, in his disappointment, did not once think that Uncle Phil had mentioned the different points along the railroad line through which it was necessary to pass in order to reach Allen’s Hill. He only felt that he must bear his suspense a little longer, and that it was hard to do so.
The next day he took the train for Canandaigua, where he spent the night, and the following morning drove himself out to Allen’s Hill, just as he had done once before, when Edna as now was the object he sought. There was no soap boiling in the caldron kettle this time, and no Macbethian witch bending over it in wonderful costume, as Roy came round the corner of the church, and tied his horse to the post. Aunt Jerry was expecting him, and welcomed him cordially, and invited him in, and then tortured him by talking for ten or fifteen minutes upon every topic but the one uppermost in his mind. At last, when he could wait no longer, he said to her, abruptly:
“Your niece wrote me that she would meet me here any day this week, and I have lost no time in coming. She will not disappoint me now, I trust. I am very anxious to find her.”
“Yes, I s’pose so. She’s here, though not in the house this minute. She went to the woods an hour or so ago.”
“Can I find her there, do you think? Show me the way, please, and I’ll try it,” Roy said with sudden animation, rising to his feet, and seeming full of eagerness and impatience.