"The tall fine man with drab hair? That's Mr Aurelius Sefton of Pugwash--one of the most rising pork-packers in the whole West, they do say."
"Pugwash? What a name! And pork! That accounts for the sleekness of his hair. Lard--depend upon it."
"You think the lard has got in his hair? Well, now, ain't you droll! Perhaps it has. But if lard has got in the hair, they do tell there has money got in the pocket. Do you lumber folks in Canady, now, have chips in your hair--chips and sawdust?"
Mrs Naylor looked dignified, and turned away. The magnates of her country deal in lumber. It is quite a high-class pursuit, and not to be spoken of in the same breath with pork--a horrid butcherly business, in which no person of refinement would condescend to make his fortune.
Maida raised her eyebrows, and turned to her friend.
"Ain't we high-strung, just! we aristocrats from Canady? What difference can it make whether it's hogs or logs a man makes his pile by, so long as he makes it? And I guess, if there's been less money made in pork, there's been a sight more lost in lumber. I had a friend once----" and she coloured faintly, looking down, and heaving a sigh so demonstrative that her friend turned and looked at her.
"Yes, my dear?" said the widow, with a droop in her voice in token of sympathy. "You had a friend? That sounds sad. Whaar did he go to?"
"He went away; and that's why it always seems as if something was catching my breath and making me feel low, whenever lumber is spoken of. He went to Canady in the lumbering interest, because prospects were better there than in old Vermont. He promised to come back when he had made his pile, and I promised to wait. It's nothing so mighty unusual for young folks to do; and it's real feelin' of you to shake your head and look at me like that, Mrs Denwiddie. But don't let folks see you a-doing it; they might wonder."
"Ah yes!" heaved the widow, in deep sympathy; "I can understand. It's the tender way us trustin' women always has. We never tell our love, but just let folks think it's a big caterpillar has got in the heart of the cabbage, so to speak; or rather, I should say, liver and dispepsy that's eatin' our young looks away. It's disappinted love, now--is it, my dear--that's wearin' you to a shaddy? I know the feelin' well," and another sigh undulated her portly figure. "It's twenty years, come Fall, since I was left a lone woman, and hope has been tellin' me flatterin' tales ever since; but the men are that backward--they just look foolish when I shake their hands friendly-like and invite them to sit a bit, after seein' me home from evenin' meetin'; and away they go, sayin' never a word, and leavin' me with no more appetite for supper than if I'd eaten it a'ready."
"Do you mean that you would marry again?"