"She has," said Mr. Butler, answering for her promptly and laughingly. "I have engaged her; but the school is a private one, number of pupils limited to one."
[CHAPTER XXVII.]
HEART-THROBS AND COMMONPLACES.
IT is not my purpose to detail to you what was said in the Morgan family when the astounding revelations connected with that evening in the parlour were made known to them. That the revelations were astounding you can hardly doubt,—at least to certain members of the family. The father and mother would hardly have been more amazed had an angel from heaven descended and claimed their daughter Dorothy for a friend. Not that they regarded the young minister in an angelic light; but they had, although they did not admit it even to themselves, much stanch loyalty of heart to the profession. A minister was a person to respect, not so much on account of himself as because of his profession. Farmer Morgan felt this. Sneer as he might, in a sort of good-natured, tolerant way, at the inconsistencies of Christians, ministers included, he never went beyond certain general phrases, and he disliked to hear others go even so far as that. Besides, Mr. Butler had grown into the genuine affections of this family. They did not know it. Farmer Morgan would have been amazed had anybody told him that he liked Mr. Butler very much; he would have been likely to think the person mistaken; yet it was true.
As for the mother, along with her respect for the minister, and a certain sense of satisfied pride in the fact that he had actually sought her daughter for a wife, came a feeling of utter astonishment that anybody wanted Dorothy. Why, Dorothy was nothing but a child. The idea of her being married! She looked at her in a kind of maze; for several days she studied over it and tried to understand it. It had never seemed to occur to her to look upon this daughter as one growing into a woman. She had seemed to stay somewhere in the region of twelve, or at best fourteen; a girl to be directed and managed; to be told peremptorily what to wear, and where to go, and where not to go; in short, a child, to obey unquestioningly—an older child than Nellie, of course, but after all a child.
Now, in the space of one night—so it seemed to the mother—she had sprung into young ladyhood, nay, sprung over it entirely, and stood on the very verge of womanhood! Engaged to be married! What an unaccountable state of things! Dorothy actually planning to go away from home—to be gone over night, many nights, every night Dorothy to have a home of her own, to be a housekeeper, a planner, a manager! To be a minister's wife! The story grew in strangeness. The mother turned on her pillow, overwhelmed with it. She arose in the morning with a strange sense of bewilderment: she looked doubtfully at Dorothy in her brown calico, the same brown calico that she had worn every morning that week, looking much the same in every respect, and yet by a certain light in her eye, and a certain spring in her step, and a certain throbbing of her mother's heart, known to be not the same for ever.
Look at the matter from whatever standpoint you may—let the circumstances be as favourable as they will, let the congratulations be as sincere and as hearty as possible—there is always a sad side to this story of life. It speaks of great and ever-increasing change; it always has its heavy corner in the mother's heart. Still, the new order of things worked well for Dorothy. If the mother was sad, she was also glad. As I said, there was a sense of satisfied pride about it; also, there was that feeling of added dignity in being the mother of Dorothy, albeit at first the sense of respect for her that came with it was nearly overpowering. Almost it seemed to her that it was hardly the thing to send the prospective wife of her minister down to the cellar after the bread and the butter, and to skim the cream! Gradually this absurd part of the feeling wore away; but the fact that Dorothy was a young woman, and not a child, was to be consulted and conferred with, and in a measure deferred to, remained, and was helpful not only to Dorothy but to the mother. The year that followed would be one that mother and daughter would like in future years to look back upon and remember.
Lewis was unaffectedly glad and thankful. Mr. Butler had grown rapidly in his regard—all the more rapidly since he had awakened to the fact that he was not merely a critic, but a fellow-worker, bound by solemn vows to work with and sustain his pastor. That his sister Dorothy should be the chosen one filled him with astonishment, but since she was chosen he was glad; and every day he grew more fully of the opinion that Mr. Butler was a sensible man, and had made a wise choice. He had underrated his sister nearly all her life; he was almost in danger of overrating her now; but that is such a pleasant and easily forgiven failing, and withal such a rare one between brothers and sisters, that I find myself liking Lewis the better for possessing it.
As for Louise, she was a woman, a young one, with wide-open eyes and sympathetic heart: she was not surprised at all. Matters had progressed more rapidly than she had expected. She was even a trifle sorry that Dorothy had not gotten just a little further on with her German before her teacher turned into her lover, because she much feared that there would be little German taught or studied now; but then she reflected that possibly the lessons he had to teach were more important than German. At least the matter was in no sense of her planning, and the studies in which she was teacher, and in which Dorothy had made such rapid progress during the year, should still continue; and so, all things considered, Louise was glad.
I find myself lingering longer over this explanation than is needed. I designed to tell you of something else—of a winter evening near to Christmas time when, the farm work for the day being all done, the early evening had closed in upon the Morgan family, and found them in the bright, clean kitchen, at their substantial supper-table—a cheery group. Somehow this family was learning to have social suppers and cheery times together. The account Lewis was giving of a matter of interest that had occurred in the village was interrupted by a decisive rap at the outside door.