[A MOTHER'S CARES].
Mrs Naylor went back to her chair to digest the information she had received. Pork and Pugwash were not ideas attractive to her refined imagination; but if there was money! The sons of "first families" in the East were sent West at times, she knew. Why not to Pugwash as well as other places? If Mr Aurelius Sefton were indeed well off, even Pugwash might be an endurable place to live in. Millinery is sent from New York by express all over the country, and railways have brought Everywhere within reach of civilisation. "Yes; if the man had his hair cut, and his manners chastened down by a judicious mother-in-law, he really was not ill-looking. She would find out brother Joseph, and bid him have an eye on the man, and try what he could find out about him from the other people in the house. It did seem, to see the pair still circling cheerfully together, as if something might be brought to pass, if that were desirable. Yet, if it were not, she must see that the girl did not compromise herself, and get classed with the easily accessible." "Ah!" she said to herself, "the anxieties of a fond mother! How are my poor nerves to stand the strain of settling those two girls?" She realised how good she was, feeling strengthened thereby, and almost heroic, as she rose and moved slowly round the outskirts of the dance in search of her brother-in-law.
The company was more numerous than usual that evening. A brass band from Lippenstock stood on the verandah, and brayed waltzes in through the open windows; and three or four omnibus-loads of strangers from Blue Fish Creek, some miles along the shore, had arrived to assist. The rooms were full, and it was not easy to pick out any one in the crowd. She made her way from doorway to doorway and past the windows, outside which the men not actively engaged were wont to lounge; but no Joseph could she see--though it was in such situations that he generally stood watching the gambols he no longer cared to join. She walked along the neighbouring galleries; but these seemed taken possession of by dancers cooling off, and sauntering in the moonlight till they were ready for another start.
At last, in the shadow of a pillar and leaning on the balustrade, she came upon a pair looking out seaward, in intimate talk. She thought she recognised something in the gentleman's back, and figure, and close-cropped hair. She almost fancied she knew him; yet who could he be? The lady wore a dress less simple than the attire of the other girls that evening. There was a shimmer of satin here and there among the dimness of thinner fabric--
"Like glints of moonshine in a clouded sky"--
and the suggestion of pale yellow, with a bunch of crimson on the shoulder, where it reached beyond the shadow which fell on the rest of the figure.
Mrs Naylor was a woman; and while she might not be able to recall the back of her own father, a gown once seen was imprinted on her memory, and she recognised it at once. "Miss Hillyard," she said to herself, "the heroine--in her lovely Paris dress. I wonder whom she has got there. That is not the contradictious Scotch schoolmaster, at any rate, with his awkward knees and elbows. The men seem wild about her. Natural, that, in the men. But a little unfeminine," she could not help thinking, "in a lady to swim so well. And it would have been in better taste if she had dressed more quietly for this once, after making herself so remarkable in the morning. But then she is a Yankee, and perhaps not altogether a lady. One never knows how to class those people. Best let them alone;" and her thoughts reverted to Mr Sefton of Pugwash, and she felt much inclined to return to the ball-room and get Lucy away from him without further seeking enlightenment.
At that moment the gentleman in shadow began to speak more loudly, pointing to where the moonlight made a patch of flickering lustre on the hazy sea.
"How bright the moonlight lies out yonder on the water! Every ripple catches it a moment and throws it back, till the surface seems to burn.... How different it was this morning! How different it must be down deep below, and how easily I might be there now--cold and stiff, rolling amongst the sea-weed, and slime, and things nibbling in the darkness! It is a horrible reflection, and it would have come true if it had not been for you."
The lady demurred, and moved, and asked if they had not better go in now; and Mrs Naylor beheld her brother-in-law turn round and lead his companion back among the dancers.