The Minister Asks to Call
"Was it?" asked Rosemary, again.
"Yes. Don't you remember hearin' the door bell ring?"
"No—I must have been asleep."
"Children go to sleep awful quick. It was five minutes of eight when he come."
"Were you expecting him?"
"No, I wasn't. He'd said to me once, on the way out of church after Sunday-school: 'Miss Matilda, I must be comin' over to see you some one of these pleasant evenings, with your kind permission,' Just like that, he says, 'with your kind permission,' I was so flustered I couldn't say much, but I did manage to tell him that Ma and me would be pleased to see him any time, and what do you suppose he said?"
"I don't know," answered Rosemary.
"He said: 'It's you I'm comin' to see—not your Ma,' Just like that—'It's you!'" Her voice had a new note in it—a strange thrill of tenderness.
"And so," she went on, after a pause, "he come. I was wearin' my brown alpaca that I'd just finished. I'd tried it on after supper to see if it was all right, and it was, so I kept on wearin' it, though Ma was tellin' me all the time to take it off. Her and me had just cleaned the parlour that day. It couldn't have happened better. And when the bell rang, I went to the door myself."