“Oh—h,” and the girl who was listening drew a long breath. “Oh—h! Going to be married,—to Fanny Gardner. That’s a pretty name. She’s English, I suppose. I guess you’ll like her;” and Bessie put her hand, half pityingly, half caressingly upon the arm of her friend, down whose cheeks two great tears were rolling.
“Yes,” Alice replied; “but it is so sudden, and I’m thinking of mother. I wonder what Gerard will say. There he is now. Oh, Gerard,” she called, as a young man came through the gate and seating himself upon a lower step took Bessie’s hand in his and held it while the bright blush on her lovely face told what he was to her.
“What’s the matter, Allie?” he said to his sister. “You look solemn as a graveyard.”
“Papa is going to be married,” Alice replied, with a sob.
“Wha—at!” and Gerard started to his feet. “Father married! Why, he is nearly fifty years old. Let me see,”—and taking the letter from Alice he read it aloud, commenting as he read. “Twenty-seven or twenty-eight; not much older than I am, for I am twenty-five; quite too young for me to call her mother. ‘The most beautiful woman I ever saw.’ He must be hard hit. ‘Ceremony takes place——’ Why, girls, it’s to-day! It’s past. I congratulate you, Allie, on a stepmother, and here’s to her health from her son;” and stooping over Bessie he kissed her before she could remonstrate.
Just then Hugh McGregor came up the walk, and taking off his straw hat wiped the perspiration from his face, while he stood for a moment surveying the group before him with a quizzical smile upon his lips. Fifteen years had changed Hugh from the tall, awkward boy of seventeen into the taller, less awkward man of thirty-two, who, having mingled a good deal with the world, had acquired much of the ease and polish which such mingling brings. Handsome he could not be called; there was too much of the rugged Scotch in him for that, but he had something better than beauty in his frank, honest face and kindly blue eyes, which bespoke the man who could be trusted to the death and never betray the trust. He, too, had received a letter from Mr. Thornton, whose business in Rocky Point he had in charge, and after reading it had gone to Thornton Park with the news. Finding both Alice and Gerard absent, he had followed on to the farm house where he was sure they were.
“I see you know it,” he said, pointing to the letter in Gerard’s hand. “I have heard from your father and came to tell you. Did you suspect this at all?”
“No,” Alice replied; “he has never written a word of any Miss Gardner. I wonder who she is.”
“I don’t know,” Hugh answered slowly, while there swept over him the same sensation he had experienced when he first saw the name in Mr. Thornton’s letter.
It did not seem quite new, and he repeated it over and over again but did not associate it with Mildred although she was often in his mind, more as a pleasant memory now, perhaps, for the feelings of the man were not quite what the boy’s had been, and in one sense Milly had dropped out of his life. When she first went away, and he was in school, everything was done with a direct reference to making of himself something of which Milly would be proud when she came back. But Milly had not come back, and the years had crept on and he was a man honored among men, and in his busy life had but little leisure for thought beyond his business. It was seldom now that he looked at the dark brown curl, or the little pea in the pod, hard as a bullet, and shriveled almost to nothing. But when he did he always thought of the summer day years ago and the young girl on the steps and the sound of the brook gurgling over the stones as it ran under the little bridge. And it all came back to him now, with news of Mr. Thornton’s bride, though why it should he could not tell. He only knew that Milly was haunting him that morning with strange persistency, and his first question to Bessie was, “When did you hear from your sister?”