She was frivolous, too much so, by far, to be a clergyman's wife, and for a full half hour Thornton paced up and down the room, meditating on Arthur's choice and wondering how upon earth it ever happened.
CHAPTER VIII.
HOW IT HAPPENED.
Lucy had insisted that she did not care to go to Saratoga. She preferred remaining in Hanover, where it was cool and quiet, and where she would not have to dress three times a day and dance every night till twelve. She was beginning to find that there was something to live for besides consulting one's own pleasure, and she meant to do good the rest of her life, she said, assuming such a sober nun-like air, that no one who saw her could fail to laugh, it was so at variance with her entire nature.
But Lucy was in earnest; Hanover had a greater attraction for her than all the watering-places in the world, and she meant to stay there, feeling very grateful when Fanny threw her influence on her side, and so turned the scale in her favor. Fanny was glad to leave her dangerous cousin at home, especially after Dr. Bellamy decided to join their party at Saratoga, and, as she carried great weight with both her parents, it was finally decided to let Lucy remain at Prospect Hill in peace, and so one morning in July she saw the family depart to their summer gayeties without a single feeling of regret that she was not of their number. She had too much on her hands to spend her time in regretting anything. There was the parish school to visit, and a class of children to hear—children who were no longer ragged, for Lucy's money had been poured out like water, till even Arthur had remonstrated with her and read her a long lecture on the subject of misplaced charity. Then, there was Widow Hobbs, waiting for the jelly Lucy had promised, and for the chapter which Lucy read to her, sitting where she could watch the road and see just who turned the corner, her voice always sounding a little more serious and good when the footsteps belonged to Arthur Leighton, and her eyes, always glancing at the bit of cracked mirror on the wall, to see that her dress and hair and ribbons were right before Arthur came in.
It was a very pretty sight to see her there and hear her as she read to the poor woman, whose surroundings she had so greatly improved, and Arthur always smiled gratefully upon her, and then walked back with her to Prospect Hill, where he sometimes lingered while she played or talked to him, or brought the luscious fruits with which the garden abounded.
This was Lucy's life, the one she preferred to Saratoga, and they left her to enjoy it, somewhat to Arthur's discomfiture, for much as he valued her society, he would a little rather she had gone when the Hethertons went, for he could not be insensible to the remarks which were being made by the curious villagers, who watched this new flirtation, as they called it, and wondered if their minister had forgotten Anna Ruthven. He had not forgotten Anna, and many a time was her loved name upon his lips and a thought of her in his heart, while he never returned from an interview with Lucy that he did not contrast the two and sigh for the olden time, when Anna was his co-worker instead of pretty Lucy Harcourt. And yet there was about the latter a powerful fascination, which he found it hard to resist. It rested him just to look at her, she was so fresh, so bright, so beautiful, and then she flattered his self-love by the unbounded deference she paid to his opinions, studying all his tastes and bringing her own will into perfect subjection to his, until she scarcely could be said to have a thought or feeling which was not a reflection of his own. And so the flirtation, which at first had been a one-sided affair, began to assume a more serious form; the rector went oftener to Prospect Hill, while the carriage from Prospect Hill stood daily at the gate of the rectory, and people said it was a settled thing, or ought to be, gossiping about it until old Captain Humphreys, Anna's grandfather, conceived it his duty as senior warden of St. Mark's, to talk with the young rector and know "what his intentions were."
"You have none?" he said, fixing his mild eyes reproachfully upon his clergyman, who winced a little beneath the gaze. "Then if you have no intentions, my advice to you is, that you quit it and let the gal alone, or you'll ruin her, if she ain't sp'ilt already, as some of the women folks say she is. It don't do no gal any good to have a chap, and specially a minister, gallyvantin' after her, as I must say you've been after this one for the last few weeks. She's a pretty little creature, and I don't blame you for liking her. It makes my old blood stir faster when she comes purring around me with her soft ways and winsome face, and so I don't wonder at you; but when you say you've no intentions, I blame you greatly. You orter have—excuse my plainness. I'm an old man who likes my minister, and don't want him to go wrong, and then I feel for her, left alone by all her folks—more's the shame to them, and more's the harm for you to tangle up her affections, as you are doing, if you are not in earnest; and I speak for her just as I should want some one to speak for Anna."
The old man's voice trembled a little here, for it had been a wish of his that Anna should occupy the rectory, and he had at first felt a little resentment against the gay young creature who seemed to have supplanted her; but he was over that now, and in all honesty of heart he spoke both for Lucy's interest and that of his clergyman. And Arthur listened to him respectfully, feeling, when he was gone, that he merited the rebuke, that he had not been guiltless in the matter, that if he did not mean to marry Lucy Harcourt he must let her alone.