Subjugated at once by her beauty, constrained to admit her lady-like deportment, Mrs. Rutland kissed the rounded cheek and hoped she would make her dear boy very happy. And Mell looked flatteringly conscious of the great lady’s condescension, and blushingly avowed her unalterable determination 292 to try. This interesting little ceremony seemed to dissipate all the underlying displeasure at Rube’s choice in his mother’s mind.
She watched the girl closely during the interview which followed. Many girls are pretty and lady-like, not many are to be found as well educated as Mell Creecy, or as thoroughly equipped by both nature and education to entertain, to amuse, to fascinate. This was that part of Mell which “tuck arter her ole daddy,” as old Jacob was wont to say. Even Clara Rutland’s manners were not more easy and irreproachable, and Clara had never been half so ready in speech and apt in reply. It was a matter of agreeable wonder to Mrs. Rutland how a hard-working uneducated farmer could have such a daughter, and she wondered also if this phenomenal social prodigy could be found so strongly marked in any other land under the sun.
Obeying an instinct of curiosity, the visitor inquired:
“Your father and mother, Melville, are they here? Will they see us?”
“Not if I can help it!” inwardly.
Outwardly very different.
“So sorry! Mother is not well to-day. She is rarely well, and rarely sees anyone. Father is as usual busy upon the farm.”
“Rube says your father is a very thorough farmer,” remarked the visitor.
“Doesn’t a good farmer make money out of it,” queried Mell, glancing at her betrothed with a doubtful little smile, “just as a lawyer does out of law, and a doctor out of physic? The earth is full of gold, and ought not a good digger to strike it somewhere—some time? Father, at any rate, is devoted to farming, as an occupation, and is happy in it, getting out of the ground more of God’s secrets than the rest of us find among the stars.”
“That is a pretty idea, Mellville,” said Mrs. Rutland.