Lover or Friend

by Rosa Nouchette Carey

Audrey was not at all surprised when Mr. O'Brien made that allusion as she was stroking the tortoise-shell cat in the sunshine. She could hear Mrs. Baxter laying the tea-things in the other parlour, where they generally sat, and the smell of the hot cakes and fragrant new bread reached them. The cuckoo's note was distinctly audible in the distance; a brown bee had buried himself in the calyx of one of the lilies; and some white butterflies were skimming over the flower-beds. The sweet stillness of the summer afternoon seemed to lull her into a reverie; how impossible it was to realise sin and sorrow and broken hearts and the great hungry needs of humanity, when the sky was so blue and cloudless, and the insects were humming in the fulness of their tiny joy! 'Will sorrow ever come to me?' thought the girl dreamily; 'of course, I know it must some day; but it seems so strange to think of a time when I shall be no longer young and strong and full of joy.' And then a wave of pity swept over her soft heart as she noticed the wrinkles in her old friend's face. 'I wish Mrs. Baxter were more cheerful,' she said inwardly; 'she has depressed him, and he has been missing me all these weeks.'

Audrey tried to be very good to him as they sat together for the next half-hour. She told him the Rutherford news, and then asked him all manner of questions. Audrey was a hypocrite in her innocent fashion; she could not really have been so anxious to know how the strawberries and peas were doing in the little kitchen garden behind the cottage, and if the speckled hen were sitting, or if Hannah, the new girl, were likely to satisfy Mrs. Baxter. And yet all these questions were put, as though everything depended on the answers. 'For you know, Mr. O'Brien,' she went on very seriously, 'Ralph declares that we shall have very little fruit this season—those tiresome winds have stripped the apple-trees—and for some reason or other we have never had such a poor show of gooseberries.'

'The potatoes are doing finely, though,' returned Mr. O'Brien, who had risen to the bait; 'after tea I hope you will walk round the garden with me, ma'am, and you will be surprised to see the way some of the things have improved.'

'Tea is ready, father,' observed Mrs. Baxter at this point. 'Miss Ross, will you take that chair by the window? you will feel the air there. I am going to ask a blessing, father: "For what we are going to receive the Lord make us truly thankful." Yes, Miss Ross, those are your favourite scones, and Hannah is baking some more; there's plum preserve and lemon marmalade and home-made seed-cake.' And Mrs. Baxter pressed one viand after another upon her guest, before she could turn her attention to the teapot, which was at present enveloped in a huge braided cosy.

'Dear me! I shall never be able to eat my dinner, Mrs. Baxter, and then mother will be miserable; you have no idea the fuss she makes if I ever say I am not hungry.'

'She is perfectly right, Miss Ross,' was the mournful answer; 'there is no blessing to equal good health, and health mainly depends on appetite. Where would father and I have been if we had not kept our health? It is a wonderful blessing, is it not, father, that I have been so strong? or I should have sunk long ago. But, as poor dear mother used to say, there is no blessing like a good constitution.'

Everyone has his or her style of conversation, just as all authors have their own peculiar style of writing. Mrs. Baxter, for example, delighted in iteration; she had a habit of taking a particular word and working it to death. Michael was the first person to notice this little peculiarity. After his first visit to Vineyard Cottage, as he was driving Audrey home in the dog-cart, he said to her:

'Did you notice how often Mrs. Baxter used the same word? I am sure she said "trouble" fifty times, if she said it once. She is not a bad-looking young woman, but she is a painfully monotonous talker. I should say she is totally devoid of originality.'

'I know nothing about health, Mrs. Baxter,' returned Audrey with aggressive cheerfulness. 'I am always so well, you see. I never had the doctor in my life, except when I had the measles.'

'And the whooping-cough, Miss Ross. Don't say you have not had the whooping-cough!'