“Yes,” returned Frederic, “and I am grateful to you for your kindness in telegraphing to my friends. How did you know I was sick?”
“Oh, I’m allus ’round,” said Ben. “Know one of them boys at the hotel, and he told me. I s’posed you’d die, and I should of come to see you mabby, only I had to go off peddlin’. Bizness afore pleasure, you know.”
This remark seemed to imply that Frederic’s dying would have been a source of pleasure to the Yankee, but the young man knew that he did intend it, and the two walked on together—Ben plying his companion with questions, an learning that both Isabel and Mrs. Huntington were now in New Haven, but would probably go to Riverside when Frederic returned from Kentucky.
“That’s a grand place,” said Ben; “fixed up in tip-top style, too. I took my sister out to see it, and she thought ’twas pretty slick. Wouldn’t wonder if you’re goin’ to marry that black haired gal, by the looks of things?” and Ben’s gray eyes peered sideways at Frederic, who replied, “I certainly have no such intentions.”
“You don’t say it,” returned Ben. “I shouldn’t of took the trouble to send for her if I hadn’t s’posed you was kinder courtin’. My sister thought you was, and she or’to know, bein’ she’s been through the mill!”
Frederic winced under Ben’s pointed remarks, and as a means of changing the conversation, said, “If I am not mistaken, you spoke of your sister when in Kentucky, and Alice became quite interested. I’ve heard her mention the girl several times. What is her name?”
“Do look at that hoss—flat on the pavement. He’s a goner,” Ben exclaimed, by way of gaining a little time.
Frederic’s attention was immediately diverted from Ben, who thought to himself, “I’ll try him with half the truth, and if he’s any ways bright he’ll guess the rest.”
So when, to use Ben’s words, the noble quadruped was “safely landed on t’other side of Jordan where there wan’t no omnibus drivers, no cars, no canal boats, no cartmen, no gals to pound their backs into pummice, no wimmen, nor ministers to yank their mouths, nor nothin’ but a lot as big as the United States with the Missippi runnin’ through it, and nothin’ to do but kick up their heels and eat clover,” Ben came back to Frederic’s question, and said, “You as’t my sister’s name. They tried hard to call her Mary Ann, I s’pose. My way of thinkin’ ’taint neither one nor t’other, though mabby you’ll like it—Marian; ’taint a common name. Did you ever hear it afore?”
“Marian!” gasped Frederic, turning instantly pale, while a strange, undefinable feeling swept over him—a feeling that he had never been so near finding her as now.