He was tall, straight, and seventy; almost painfully neat, and evidently a gentleman of the old school.
“I trust you are well, madam?”
“I am always well,” returned Aunt Peace. “If all the other old ladies in East Lancaster were as well as I, you would soon be obliged to take down your sign and seek another location.”
The others took but small part in the conversation, which was never lively, and which, indeed, might have been stilted by the presence of strangers. It was the commonplace talk of little things, which distinguishes the country town, and it lasted for half an hour. As the clock chimed eight, Miss Field smiled at him significantly.
“Shall we play chess?” she asked.
“If the others will excuse us, I shall be charmed,” he responded.
Soon they were deep in their game. Margaret went after a book she had been reading, and the young people went to the library, where they could talk undisturbed.
They played three games. Miss Field won the first and third, her antagonist contenting himself with the second. It had always been so, and for ten years she had taken a childish delight in her skill. “My dear Doctor,” she often said, “it takes a woman of brains to play chess.”
“It does, indeed,” he invariably answered, with an air of gallantry. Once he had been indiscreet and had won all three games, but that was in the beginning and it had never happened since.
When the clock struck ten, he looked at his heavy, old-fashioned silver watch with apparent surprise. “I had no idea it was so late,” he said. “I must be going!”