This settled the question, and settled it most judiciously and satisfactorily. The solid food proved a balm of comfort to that desolate goneness within her, which Mell had wrongly ascribed as due entirely to the volcanic derangement of her heart; and the strong wine sped through her veins a draught of health, a cordial to the mind, a rosy elixir of life.
Mell began to take some interest in her companion and her present surroundings. She recognized in them a certain claim to her consideration, and a certain charm. This young stranger was a gentleman in looks and bearing; he had some manliness in his nature, nevertheless, (Mell felt down on gentlemen) and a heart as brimming full of charity as St. Vincent de Paul, himself. He was not ashamed among all his fine friends, to speak to a simple country girl, who, destitute of fortune, had nothing to commend her but innate modesty and God-given beauty. So far from being ashamed, he was ministering to her wants as no one had ever ministered to them before—as kindly and courteously as if she were in every respect his equal in social standing. Jerome would not speak to her, and this gentleman, in her weakness, held the cup to her lips, and put the food into her mouth with his own hands.
“I’ll pray for him this very night,” thought Mell, and moistened the thought with a grateful tear.
But, long before the edibles were consumed, every vestige of a tear had disappeared from Mell’s eyes, and she was talking back to this pattern of 275 a gentleman, as few girls of her age knew so well how to do. The blood rushed back to her pallid cheeks, witchery to her tongue, magic to her glance.
“Don’t be offended,” she remarked to him, with enchanting candor, after they had become the best of friends; “but I did not hear your name this morning, and I have not the slightest idea who you are.”
“Have you the slightest desire to know?”
“Indeed I have! You can’t imagine—the very greatest desire!”
“Then let me refresh your memory somewhat. Do you recall a pug-nosed, freckle-faced, bull-headed youngster, who used to pommel Jim Green into blue jelly, every time he wanted to lift you over the swollen creek or carry your school-bag, or—”
“I do; I remember him well. But you—you are not Rube Rutland?”
“Then I wish you’d tell me who I am! I’ve been thinking I was Rube Rutland for a good many years now—for I am older than I look.”