"Well, give me your attention just now, Mr. Traverse," said Gussie, lifting up a skein of silk for him to hold, and beginning to wind it off. "Does the future Mrs. Traverse indulge in this work?"
"Well, now, I really don't know, Miss Gussie; but if the knowledge of it is important I am sure she can do it, though I may never have seen her at it."
Dexie was suffering agonies of mind. Who could it be that had won his heart? It must be someone he had known before coming to Lennoxville, and his visits away from town were not always on business matters. She sat listening to every word with a beating heart, but those who were watching her closely could read no word from that quiet, immovable face.
"Do tell us something about this city girl of yours," Gussie said, teasingly. "We have been so intimate that it is only fair to tell us something about her. Is she tall or short, a blonde or brunette, and what kind of work is she usually at when you go to see her? or is she a society lady with nothing to do but dress up and look pretty? Perhaps she paints; that is fashionable now."
"Paints! No, never! 'Her cheeks are like the rose, that in the garden blooms,' and so on, but for all that, I am sure she does not paint!"
"Paint pictures, I mean! You know I did! Of course, I never meant her face! But what sort of work is she fond of? What are her talents? I am sure you must know that!"
"Well, now, I really don't believe I ever asked her what she likes to do best, and she is so unselfish that it would not be fair to judge her by what she is actually doing when I happen to see her, for I am sure that some of her self-imposed tasks are far from pleasant to her. I have heard her called her mother's right hand. I suppose you know what that means, Miss Gussie?"
Dexie raised her eyes for one moment, but dropped them when she saw Traverse looking at her intently. She was glad it was not a fashionable belle he had chosen for his wife, for she knew what a position she must hold if she was "her mother's right hand." That term told a long story to one initiated into its duties.
"But I am not going to let you off with such a general answer, Mr. Traverse," was Gussie's persistent reply, "so tell me at least one thing that you have seen her engaged in when you called upon her."
"Well, really, Miss Gussie, you fairly puzzle me, for I can't think of the name of the work which I see her at most frequently," and he looked up as if reflecting on the matter; then glancing over to Dexie, who sat by the side table with a mending basket near, he added, "Oh! now I remember it. It is 'family mending,' I believe you call it. You just put me in mind of it, Miss Dexie," as Dexie raised an astonished pair of eyes to his face.