"About what, love?"
"That about you know that chapter."
"About the death of Lazarus?"
"Yes. It has comforted me very much."
"So it has me, Ellie. It has been exceeding sweet to me at different times. Come, sing to me 'How firm a foundation.' "
From time to time, Alice led to this kind of conversation, both for Ellen's sake and her own pleasure. Meanwhile she made her go on with her usual studies and duties; and but for these talks Ellen would have scarce known how to believe that it could be true which she feared.
The wedding of Miss Fortune and Mr. Van Brunt was a very quiet one. It happened at far too busy a time of the year, and they were too cool calculators, and looked upon their union in much too business-like a point of view, to dream of such a wild thing as a wedding-tour, or even resolve upon so troublesome a thing as a wedding-party. Miss Fortune would not have left her cheese and butter-making to see all the New Yorks and Bostons that ever were built; and she would have scorned a trip to Randolph. And Mr. Van Brunt would as certainly have wished himself all the while back among his furrows and crops. So one day they were quietly married at home, the Rev. Mr. Clark having been fetched from Thirlwall for the purpose. Mr. Van Brunt would have preferred that Mr. Humphreys should perform the ceremony; but Miss Fortune was quite decided in favour of the Thirlwall gentleman, and of course he it was.
The talk ran high all over the country on the subject of this marriage, and opinions were greatly divided; some congratulating Mr. Van Brunt on having made himself one of the richest landholders "in town," by the junction of another fat farm to his own; some pitying him for having got more than his match within doors, and "guessing he'd missed his reckoning for once."
"If he has, then," said Sam Larkens, who heard some of these condoling remarks, "it's the first time in his life, I can tell you. If she ain't a little mistaken, I wish I mayn't get a month's wages in a year to come. I tell you, you don't know Van Brunt; he's as easy as anybody as long as he don't care about what you're doing; but if he once takes a notion, you can't make him gee nor haw no more than you can our near ox Timothy when he's out o' yoke and he's as ugly a beast to manage as ever I see when he ain't yoked up. Why, bless you! there han't been a thing done on the farm this five years but just what he liked she don't know it. I've heerd her," said Sam chucking "I've heerd her a-telling him how she wanted this thing done and t'other, and he'd just not say a word, and go and do it right t'other way. It'll be a wonder if somebody ain't considerably startled in her calculations afore summer's out."