Starting up from the bench as he uttered these words he jostled Bertha's book from her hand. The leaves parted in falling, and a large card, escaping from between them, fluttered down upon the floor. He picked it up and restored it to her, with the book.
"There!" she answered, giving the card back again, "there is what I mean! Must I give you your own card in order to acquaint you with your own business?"
Mr. Bartlett looked at it for a second in blank amazement; then, like a flash of lightning, the whole course of the misunderstanding flashed across his mind. He burst—I am ashamed to say—into a tremendous paroxysm of mingled tears and laughter: were he not so strong and masculine a man, I should say, "hysterics." In vain he struggled to find words. At every attempt a fresh convulsion of laughter seized him, and tears, mingled with rain, flowed down his cheeks.
Bertha began to be alarmed at this strange and unexpected convulsion. "Professor Hurlbut!" said she, "what is the matter?"
"Professor Hurlbut!" he repeated, in a faint, scarcely audible scream; then, striving to suppress his uncontrollable fit of delight and comical surprise, he sank upon the bench at her feet, shaking from head to foot with the effort.
"A-a-ah!" he at last panted forth, as if heaving an atlas-load from his heart, and stood erect before her. With his face still flushed and eyes sparkling he was as handsome an embodiment of youth and life as one could wish to see. In two words he explained to her the mistake, on learning which Bertha blushed deeply, saying: "How could I ever have supposed it!" And then, reflecting upon the inferences which could be drawn from such an expression, became suddenly shy and silent.
Of course she accepted Mr. Bartlett's escort to the hotel when the rain was over, and he was presented to the agonised mother, who hailed him as a deliverer of her daughter from untold dangers, and privately remarked, afterward, to the latter: "Upon my word, a very nice young man, my dear!" Dick's commendation was no less emphatic though differently expressed: "A good fellow! well made in the shoulders and flanks: fine action, but wants a little training!"
By this time, ladies, you have probably guessed the conclusion. My story would neither be agreeable nor true (I am relating facts) if they were not married, and did not have two children, and live happy ever after. Married they were, in the course of time, and happy they also are, for I visit them now and then.
One thing I had nearly forgotten. When Mrs. Bartlett chooses to tease her husband in that playful way so delightful to married lovers, she invariably calls him "Professor Hurlbut," while he retorts with "Miss Lawrence, of South Carolina." Moreover, in Mrs. B.'s confidential little boudoir, over her work-stand, hangs a neatly-framed card, whereon you may read: