Very rapidly the Spring passed away, enlivened once by a short visit from Ben, who, having purchased an entire new suit of clothes for the occasion, looked and appeared unusually well, talking but little until he was alone with Marian, when his tongue was loosed, and he told her all he had come to tell.
He had been to Riverside, he said, and Mrs. Russell, who was still there and was to be the future housekeeper, was very gracious to him, on account of his being the adopted brother of their next governess, Miss Grey.
“She showed me your chamber,” said he, “and it’s the very one they fixed up so nice for Isabel. Nobody has ever used it, for Miss Jones slep’ in a little room at the end of the hall. Frederic has had a door cut from Alice’s chamber into yourn, ’cause he said how’t you and she would want to be near to each other, he knew. And I’ll tell you what, when you git there, it seems to me you’ll be as nigh Heaven as you’ll ever git in this world. Mrs. Huntington has bought a little cottage close by Frederic’s,” he continued, “and she’s livin’ there with Isabel, who has got to be an heir——”
“An heiress!” repeated Marian. “Whose, pray?”
“Don’t know,” returned Ben, “only that old man she went to Florida with is dead, and he willed her some. I don’t know how much, but law she’ll spend it in no time. Mrs. Russell said her lace curtains cost an awful sight, though she b’lieved they was bought second-hand, in New York. I walked by there afoot to see ’em, and between you and me they are yallerer than saffern. My advice to her is that she bile ’em up in ashes and water, jest as mother used to bile up my shirts that I wore in the factory. It’ll whiten ’em quickest of anything, and if I’s you I’d kinder tell her so—friendly like, you know—’cause it don’t look well for decent folks to have such dirty things a hangin’ to their winders!”
Marian smiled at Ben’s simplicity, telling him that “the chief value of the curtains consisted probably in their soiled, yellow appearance.”
“Whew,” whistled Ben, “I wish mother’d had a little more larnin’, for if she’d known it was genteel to be dirty, mabby she wouldn’t have broke her back a scrubbin’, when there warn’t no use on’t.”
Isabel’s curtains having been discussed at length, and herself described as Ben saw her “struttin’ through the streets,” he arose to go, telling Marian he should not probably see her again until he visited her in the Autumn at Riverside.
“I guess I wouldn’t let it all out at once,” said he, “but wait and let Frederic sweat. It’ll do him good, and he isn’t paid yet for all he’s made you suffer. I ain’t no Universaler, but I do like to see folks catch it as they go ’long.”
Once Marian thought to tell him of William Gordon’s unfortunate attachment, particularly as he was loud in his praises of the young man; but upon second reflections she decided to keep that matter to herself, hoping that the subject would never be mentioned to her again. And in this her wishes seemed to be realized, for as the weeks after Ben’s departure went by, William began to be more like himself than he had been before since her refusal of him. He came often to Mrs. Sheldon’s, sang with her sometimes as of old, and she fancied he was losing his love for her. But she was mistaken, for it was strengthening with each hour’s interview. The very hopelessness of his passion rendered it more intense, it would seem, until at last, unable longer to remain where she was, and know she could never be his, he went from home, nor returned again until near the middle of August, when he found Mrs. Sheldon’s house in a state of great confusion. Furniture was being covered or packed away, rooms shut up, and windows fastened down, while his sister was in that state of feminine bliss when every chair is filled with new dresses, save two, and those two are occupied by the makers of said dresses.