Miss Darrell and Mr. Stuart, in his present state of convalescence, rarely met except to quarrel. They spoke their minds to one another, with a refreshing frankness remarkable to hear.
"You remind me of one I loved very dearly once, Dithy," Charley said to her, sadly, one, day, after an unusually stormy wordy war—"in fact, the only one I ever did love. You resemble her, too—the same sort of hair and complexion, and exactly the same sort of—ah—temper! Her name was Fido—she was a black and tan terrier—very like you, my dear, very like. Ah! these accidental resemblances are cruel things—they tear open half-healed wounds, and cause them to bleed afresh. Fido met with an untimely end—she was drowned one dark night in a cistern. I thought I had outlived that grief, but when I look at you—"
A stinging box on the ear, given with right good will, cut short the mournful reminiscence, and brought tears to Mr. Stuart's eyes, that were not tears of grief for Fido.
"You wretch!" cried Miss Darrell, with flashing eyes. "I've a complexion of black and tan, have I, and a temper to match! The only thing I see to regret in your story is, that it wasn't Fido's master who fell into the cistern, instead of Fido. To think I should live to be called a black and tan!"
They never met except to quarrel. Edith's inflammatory temper was up in arms perpetually. They kept the house in an uncommonly lively state. It seemed to agree with Charley. His twisted ankle grew strong rapidly, flesh and color came back, the world was not to be robbed of one of its brightest ornaments just yet. He put off writing to his friends from day to day, to the great disapproval of Mr. Darrell, who was rather behind the age in his notions of filial duty.
"It's of no use worrying," Mr. Stuart made answer, with the easy insouciance concerning all things earthly which sat so naturally upon him; "bad shillings always come back—let that truthful old adage console them. Why should I fidget myself about them. Take my word they're not fidgeting themselves about me. The governor's absorbed in the rise and fall of stocks, the maternal is up to her eyes in the last parties of the season, and my sister is just out and absorbed body and soul in beaux and dresses. They never expect me until they see me."
About the close of April Mr. Stuart and Miss Darrell fought their last battle and parted. He went back to New York and to his own world, and life stagnant and flat flowed back on its old level for Edith Darrell.
Stagnant and flat it had always been, but never half so dreary as now. Something had come into her life and gone out of it, something bright and new, and wonderfully pleasant. There was a great blank where Charley's handsome face had been, and all at once life seemed to lose its relish for this girl of sixteen. A restlessness took possession of of her. Sandypoint and all belonging to it grew distasteful. She wanted change, excitement—Charley Stuart, perhaps—something different certainly from what she was used to, or likely to get.
Charley went home and told the "governor," and the "maternal," and
"Trixy" of his adventure, and the girl who had saved his life. Miss
Beatrix listened in a glow of admiration.
"Is she pretty, Charley?" she asked, of course, the first inevitable female question.