“Martin!”
It was only a single word, but the yearning in it told him all he sought to know. In an instant he was on his knees beside her, kissing the brown hand that rested on the coverlid, touching his lips to the glory of her hair.
Jane, waiting in the meantime alone in the dull, whitewashed office, had ample opportunity to study every nail in its floor, count the slats in the slippery, varnished chairs, and speculate as to the identity of the spectacled dignitaries whose portraits adorned the walls.
She planned her winter’s wardrobe, decided what Mary, Eliza and herself should wear at the wedding, and mentally arranged every 303 detail of the coming domestic upheaval. Having exhausted all these subjects, she began in quite indecent fashion to select names for her future nieces and nephews. The first boy should be Webster Howe. What a grand old name it would be! She prayed he would be tall like Martin, and have Lucy’s eyes and hair. Ah, what a delight she and Mary and Eliza would have bringing up Martin’s son and baking cookies for him!
It was just when she was mapping out the educational career of this same Webster Howe and was struggling to decide what college should be honored by his presence that Martin burst into the room. A guilty blush dyed Jane’s virgin cheek.
Martin, however, took no notice of her abstraction. In fact he could scarcely speak coherently.
“It’s all right, Jane,” he cried. “I’m the happiest man on earth. Lucy loves me. Isn’t it wonderful, unbelievable? We are goin’ to be married right away, an’ I’m to start buildin’ the wall, so’st it will be done before the cold weather comes. We’re goin’ to leave a little gate in it for you an’ Mary an’ ’Liza to come through. An’ we’re goin’ to put up a stone in 304 the cemetery to Lucy’s aunt with: In grateful remembrance of Ellen Webster on it.”
Jane sniffed.
“I can think of a better inscription than that,” she remarked with unwonted tartness, lapsing into Scripture. “Carve on it:
“He that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity; and the rod of his anger shall fail.”