“Oh, I’m a cheerful idiot, all right, all right. I have such a short upper lip and such an eternal grin on me that no one ever seems to think I have any feelings. I get no more sympathy than a fat man. I wish I could make people understand that I am as serious as the next, but somehow me Irish grandmither comes popping out in me and I have to joke if I am to die the next minute.”
“I think your disposition is most enviable,” said Molly kindly, “and, as for the dash of Irish, I always think that is what makes our mother so charming. It was almost a fad with our professor of English at college to find the Irish mother or grandmother for almost all of the great poets or essayists.” Molly could not quite trust herself to say Professor Green’s name, the picture of the seemingly ecstatic Edwin driving off with Miss Ormsby was too fresh in her mind, and she could not help smiling at herself for her formal “our professor of English.”
Their footsteps led them into the garden and then through the apple orchard down by the little stream, and on to the beech woods.
“I wonder why we are coming this way,” thought Molly, trying to keep her mind off another walk she had taken over that same ground not so long ago.
“Let’s sit down here,” said Jimmy, stopping under the great beech tree where Molly and Edwin had sat on that memorable day when he had spoken of his vision of the white-haired Molly, and then had stopped himself so suddenly with a joke about his own possible baldness.
“Oh, not right here,” said Molly hurriedly. “I know a nice rock a little farther on.”
“Molly, Miss Molly, Miss Brown!——Oh, Molly, darling, there is no use in going any farther because I know you know that I have brought you out here to tell you that I——”
“Jimmy, please don’t say anything more. It ’most kills me to hurt you.”
“Is there no hope for me? I’ll wait a week, oh, I don’t mean a week, I’ll wait forever if there is a chance for me. I know this is a low question to ask you, but is there any one else?”
Honest Molly hung her head. “Not exactly.”