Little did Jessie suspect the harm these few comparatively harmless lines would cause, and little did Dora suspect it either, as with a load of pain lifted from her heart and consequently from her head, she sat down by her open window and followed with her mind her letter’s course to far-off California, and then imagined the quick response it would bring back, and which would make her so happy.
“Johnnie must be the medium between Squire Russell and me,” she said. “I’ll tell him to-morrow that his father must wait for my definite reply at least six weeks, and possibly two months. At the end of that time I shall know for sure, and if the doctor does not care, there will be a kind of desperate pleasure in marrying my brother.”
CHAPTER XV.
WAITING FOR THE ANSWER.
As Dora reached this conclusion there came a well-known knock upon the door, and unfastening the bolt she admitted Johnnie, who had been up many times that day, but had not before been permitted to enter.
“O Auntie,” he cried, “you are better and I’m glad. I didn’t mean what I said about swearing, and drinking, and smoking, and I was so mad at myself that I teased Ben and Burt on purpose till they got hoppin’, and then I lay still while both little Arabs pitched into me. My! didn’t their feet fly like drumsticks as they kicked and struck, and pulled my hair; but when Ben got the big carving-fork, I concluded I’d been punished enough, and so deserted the field! But, Auntie, I do wish you could love father. He has looked so sorry to-day, kind of white about the mouth, and his hand trembled this noon when he carved the turkey. Won’t you, Auntie? I’ve prayed ten times this afternoon that you might, and I begin to have faith that you will. Dr. West, who used to talk to me so good last summer when I was in his Sunday-school class, said we must have faith that God would hear us.”
Dora drew a long, sad sigh, as she wished she too had been taught of Dr. West to pray differently from what she knew she did. Smoothing back John’s soft, dark hair, she said:
“Johnnie, girls cannot make a love in a minute, and this came so suddenly upon me, I must have time to think,—six weeks or two months, and then I will decide. Will you tell your father this for me? Tell him I’m sorry to make him feel badly,—that I like him and always shall, even if I am not his wife—that I know how good, how generous she is,—that he will wait until I know my own mind better, and then if I cannot be his, he must not mind it.”
“I’ll tell him,” Johnnie said, while Dora continued:
“And Johnnie, perhaps it had better be understood that nothing is to be said about it in the mean time,—nothing to me by your father.”