Such was the fearful picture conjured up by Wilford’s imagination, as he stood watching poor Aunt Betsy, a dark cloud on his brow and fierce anger at his heart, that she should thus presume to worry and annoy him.
“If she spies us she will be finding her way up here; there’s no piece of effrontery of which that class is not capable,” he thought, wondering next who the vulgar-looking girl and gauche youth were who were with her.
“Country cousins, of whom I have never heard, no doubt,” and he ground his teeth together as with his next breath he suggested going home, carrying out his suggestion and hurrying both Helen and Katy to the carriage as if some horrible dragon had been on their track.
There was no baggage in the hall; there had been no woman there, and Wilford’s fears for a time subsided, but grew strong again about the time he knew the opera was out, while the sound of wheels coming towards his door was sufficient to make his heart stop beating, and every hair prickle at its roots.
But Aunt Betsy did not come except in Wilford’s dreams, which she haunted the entire night, so that the morning found him tired, moody and cross. That day they entertained a select dinner party, and as this was something in which Katy excelled, while Helen’s presence, instead of detracting from, would add greatly to the éclat of the affair, Wilford had anticipated it with no small degree of complacency. But now, alas, there was a phantom at his side,—a skeleton of horror, wearing Aunt Betsy’s guise; and if it had been possible he would have given the dinner up. But it was too late for that; the guests were bidden, the arrangements made, and there was nothing now for him but to abide the consequences.
“She shall at least stay in her room, if I have to lock her in,” he thought, as he went down to his office without kissing Katy or bidding her good-by.
Business that day had no interest for him, and in a listless, absent way he sat watching the passers-by and glancing at his door as if he expected the first assault to be made there. Then, as the day wore on, and he felt sure that what he so much dreaded had really come to pass, that the baggage expected last night had certainly arrived by this time and spread itself over his house, he could endure the suspense no longer, and startled Mark with the announcement that he was going home, and should not return again that day.
“Going home, when Leavit is to call at three!” Mark said, in much surprise, and feeling that it would be a relief to unburden himself to some one, the story came out that Wilford had seen Aunt Betsy at the opera, and expected to find her at Madison Square.
“I wish I had answered her letter about that confounded sheep-pasture,” he said, “for I would rather give a thousand dollars—yes, ten thousand—than have her with us to-day. I did not marry my wife’s relations,” he continued, excitedly, adding, as Mark looked quickly up, “Of course I don’t mean Helen. Neither do I mean that doctor, for he is a gentleman. But this Barlow woman—oh! Mark, I am all of a dripping sweat just to think of it.”
He did not say what he intended doing, but with Mark Ray’s ringing laugh in his ears, passed into the street, and hailing a stage was driven towards home, just as a down town stage deposited on the walk in front of his office “that Barlow woman” and Mattie Tubbs!