He did not require the oath, but he told her; and with a cry of “Glory Hallelujah!” the old woman began to imitate a skirt dance she had seen in a travelling show, and thought rather immoral. Nothing was immoral now, if it gave vent to her joy; nothing too complicated; and she not only tried the skirt dance, but the Highland fling she had learned when a girl. She was sure to stay where she was, and she refused the next washing brought her; said she was out of the business, and if folks waited a spell they’d know why.
The next two weeks she devoted to cleaning the part of the house she had occupied, and picking up every dried leaf and stick in the grass, and pulling every weed in the garden and flower beds.
More artistic hands than hers had arranged the rooms with flowers and ferns and potted plants and palms on the June day when Fred Lansing and his bride were expected. They had been in New York a week, and now, with Fred’s mother and Miss Percy, were coming to Merivale—as guests of Judge White, Louie thought; and the belief marred a little the pleasure of her home-coming.
Herbert had written a letter of congratulation, in which he had said:
“I am glad for you, Louie, but cannot forget that I once hoped to be to you what Fred is. If there is any good in me, I owe it to you. God bless you. I shall never marry.
“Herbert.”
There were tears in Louie’s eyes when she read this, but Fred kissed them away, and then began to talk of the joy of being in Merivale again and meeting her friends, who, Mr. Blake wrote, were anxiously waiting to see her.
“Yes,” Louie said; “I am very glad, but I wish there was some place for us besides Judge White’s. You don’t know how I shrink from going there. Would it be very bad to stop at the hotel?”
“Yes, darling; very bad,” Fred answered, laughing, as he thought of the surprise in store for her.
It was one of the loveliest days in June when the New York train stopped at the Merivale station, where, it seemed to Louie, the whole town was assembled, reminding her of the run and the failure. This crowd, however, was animated by very different feelings; and as cheer after cheer went up, and her hands were grasped by friend after friend, eager to welcome her home, she began to feel faint and nauseated as she had felt sometimes when the shadows were darkest around her. Fred saw it and tried to draw her from the swarming throng to his uncle’s carriage, which the judge told him was waiting for him.