Missy: A Novel

by Miriam Coles Harris

Missy was quite chagrined by this information. Mr. Andrews had felt so constrained and uncomfortable in his own house, he could not bear it any longer. Or else he had so honorably desired to put her at her ease while she had to stay, that he had wanted to go away. Either view of the case was bad enough; but it was undeniably an awkward situation, and if he persisted in keeping away from the table for another meal, she should feel that it was unendurable, and they must go away, range or no range, order or disorder.

Jay followed her from the table, clinging to her skirts. She went directly to her mother, where the child's prattle covered her absent-minded silence.

It was a lovely June evening, fresh after the rain of yesterday, and she sat by the window watching the pink clouds fade into gray, and the twilight make its way over the fields and roadside. Jay babbled his innocent babble to inattentive ears; by and by he grew sleepy. Eliza came, and he was sent away.

It was about half-past eight, when the servant came up, and said that there was a person below who wished to see Mrs. or Miss Varian. Missy struck a match and looked at the card. It was the agent of the insurance company, in which the house had been insured.

"Why could he not come in the daytime! I absolutely can't talk business to-night."

The servant explained that he came up by the evening train, had been at the house, and was to go away by an early train in the morning.

There was no help for it; Missy dismissed the pink clouds and the soft creeping twilight and her thoughts, and went down stairs to the parlor. The room was lighted only by a lamp which stood on the table in the middle of it, by which the agent sat. He was a trim, dapper, middle-aged man, not at all aware that he was not a gentleman, and very sharp about business matters, while he was affable and explanatory, as became a business man dealing with a young lady. His manner annoyed Missy, who would have got on much better if he had been simply business-like. She knew he had the better of her in his knowledge of matters, and her memory was very unusually faulty about the things she ought to have remembered. The papers were all in her room at home, and for aught she knew, had been lost or destroyed when that room was torn to pieces to save it from the flames. She certainly had not been wise enough to think of looking for them since the fire occurred.

"You will have to come again," she said; "I really am not prepared to-night to talk it over."

He seemed disposed to take advantage of this, and rather pressed an immediate decision on some question.

It was not till this moment that Missy knew that Mr. Andrews was in the room. He was lying on a sofa in a corner, and a screen stood before him, shielding him from the light.