"Carl?" said Mrs. Tom, with a short laugh. "Lor'-a-massy! he ain't worth his salt; that there's the laziest, most worthlessest young scape-goat ever any living 'oman was plagued with. I hain't a minute's peace with him night nor day; and if scolding was a mite of good, the Lord knows he might have been a saint by this time, for he gets enough of it."
Willard laughed. And in such conversation the morning slipped away—very rapidly to Mrs. Tom, but each moment an age to our impatient lover. For Christie was absent still; and a strange reluctance, for which he could not account, still prevented Willard from asking for her. It was an inward sense of guilt that troubled him; for, feeling toward her as he did, he felt he had no right even to mention her name.
At last, in despair, he arose to go. Mrs. Tom relieved his mind by saying:
"Christie will be disappointed at not seeing you," said the old lady, following him out. "She went out berrying to the woods this morning, and hain't got home yet."
Willard started at the information; and, inwardly cursing the folly that had detained him so many hours talking to a foolish old woman, he darted off, with a rapidity that quite amazed Mrs. Tom, in the direction of the pine woods.
"What a confounded fool I have been," he exclaimed, savagely, "to stay there listening to the way to make butter, and flannel, and 'yarb tea,' as if the old beldame thought I was going to be somebody's housekeeper, or a female doctress; and all the time this enchanting little blue-eyed witch was wandering alone by herself. What an opportunity I have lost! and now I suppose I may search for an hour and not find her."
He turned an abrupt angle in the winding path, and stifled a sudden exclamation of surprise and delight; for there before him, reclining on the grass, with half-veiled eyes, and soft, musing smile, sat the object of all his thoughts, wishes, and desires.
He paused for a moment to contemplate the picture before him, for, if Christie had seemed beautiful when he first beheld her, oh, doubly lovely did she appear now in her attitude of unstudied grace.
Her dress was a loose, light muslin robe, fitting to perfection her rounded waist and swelling bust. Her straw hat lay on the ground beside her, and her golden, sunshiny hair floated, with all its wealth of rippling ringlets, round her ivory throat. How dazzlingly fair looked that smooth, snowy brow, contrasted with the full crimson lips and delicately flushed cheeks—how enchanting the long curved lashes, falling over the deep-blue eyes—how beautiful that faultless form, that soft, gentle, happy smile of guileless girlhood.
Willard Drummond's breath came and went, quick and short, as he gazed, and his dark eyes filled with a subdued fire.