A boy walked up the garden path. The young lady seated on the porch, saw him coming, and a feeling of exultation shot through all the blood in her veins. The boy held a note in his hand, and Mell jumped into the contents of that note, intellectually, in less than the millionth part of a second. He could not stand it any longer; he was writing to know if he might call, and when. She had a great mind to let him come this very evening, though he did not deserve it; but then, do men ever deserve just what they get, good and bad, at women’s hands?
“A note, ma’am,” said the boy. Mell took it in silence, opened it tremulously, and read:
“Suke is unhappy. Me too. Don’t disappoint us to-morrow, and send me a bit of a line, sweet lassie, to say that you will not. J. P. D.”
“The scribblings of a school-boy,” muttered Mell, inconceivably dashed.
“No answer,” she told the boy. When the messenger was beyond reach of recall, she was sorry she had not replied to the note, or sent word, yes; for, perhaps, it would be better to see him once more, have a plain talk, and come to some understanding. The more she dwelt upon the matter, the more certain she became that this was her best course; so upon the morrow, the half-past five o’clock breakfast was hardly well over, when, with alternate hope and fear measuring swords within her, she fled to the lot for Suke. With one arm thrown affectionately around the Jersey’s neck, the two proceeded most amicably to the meadow. There she waited an hour nearly, before Jerome came; but he did come, eventually, wearing the loveliest of shooting-jackets, with an English primrose in his buttonhole, radiantly handsome, deliciously cool, and as much at his leisure as if it did not make much difference to him whether he ever reached his destination or not.
Thus Jerome—but what of Mell? Every medullary thread, every centripetal and centrifugal filament in her entire body was excited over his coming. She was flushed, and so hot and flurried, and had been waiting for him, it seemed to her, twelve months at least, and it enraged her now to see him sauntering so slowly toward her, just as if they had parted five minutes ago. Poor Mell, after her experiences of the past three days, was 260 in that condition of body when a trifle presses upon one’s nervous forces with all the weight of a mountain. Irritated, she returned his good morning coldly.
“Dear me, Mr. Devonhough! Is it really you? Why did you come? I did not send you word I would be here.”
“No, you did not. Nevertheless, I knew you would.”
“Nevertheless, you knew nothing of the sort! How can you say that? I had a strong notion not to come.”
Jerome made a gesture of incredulity.