The Merivale banks

by Mary Jane Holmes

“It is very curious. Don’t know his name! How can that he?” Herbert asked, and Louie replied: “No one would buy it, the price was so high, till Mr. Blake bought it and paid the money down, and then in a few days told us he had sold it to some one who does not care to occupy it at present, and said we could stay here rent free as long as we like. Mr. Blake will not tell me who it is—says he is not at liberty to do so. Who do you suppose it can be? I wish I knew.”

Something in Herbert’s face made Louie start suddenly and exclaim, “It isn’t you?”

“No,” Herbert said bitterly. “It isn’t I. I wish to Heaven it were or that I had the means to help you. Oh, Louie, Louie! is it all over between us?”

A strong suspicion of the unknown friend had entered Herbert’s mind, and with it a fierce pang of jealousy which prompted him to cry out for what he had lost, and which had never seemed dearer to him than now when she stood before him, like some fair flower beaten by the storm, but sweet and lovely still.

Louie was surprised and drew away from him quickly. She had no wish to renew their old relations and knew it could not be.

“It is all over; it must be,” she said. “We settled that, you know; but we are friends; the best of friends, always; and I am glad you came to see me. There is no one in the world except father and mother whom I like half as well as I do you; and now good-by. I hear Nancy Sharp’s voice in the kitchen, and that means a battle with the maid, if there is anything out of order, as there probably is. Nancy is sharp by nature as well as by name! and makes no allowance for what she calls ‘sozzlin ways,’ and Betty is rather that way. I must go to them. Good-by.”

She gave him her hand, which he pressed hard between both his own, but could not speak, for the lump in his throat choking him. So, without a word, he went away, feeling that everything was surely over between himself and Louie, and feeling envious and jealous of the stranger who had bought the Grey house and whose identity he guessed.

What business had he to meddle, and what would Louie say if she knew, as she must some time know, but not from him? he thought. He would be generous enough to both to keep his suspicions to himself, and not even hint them to his father, to whom he merely said that the house was sold to some stranger, who, for the present, would allow the family to stay there rent free.

Such generosity the judge could not understand. He had suggested the tenement in White’s Row, and thought himself very magnanimous to do it, and had even spoken of his intention to some of his acquaintances, who elevated their eyebrows and said he was very kind, while inwardly they laughed at the idea. The judge, however, was not one to understand insinuations derogatory to himself, and felt that he was exceedingly generous.

“Same as givin’ ’em a hundred dollars, square!” he said, and he was thinking of writing his offer to Louie, when Herbert dampened his zeal, first by telling him it was an insult, and next that the Grey house was given to the family rent free, and there would be no necessity for them to move either into White’s Row or elsewhere.