"Well, Sandy, nobody gets a sight of you nowadays down this way. I never was so set up as when I heard tell you was goin' to marry the schoolmarm. Why, I was always certain sure you'd take to Annie Bray. Such a sweet little lamb as she is; not a bit high-strung 'cause she's made much of at the great house on the hill, though she does sing like a bird in an apple-tree every Sunday, when Louisy Purdo doesn't drown her voice with screechin'; but she's grown more sober an' quiet-like than ever. Miss Bray says she helps a powerful deal about house, and Amos don't swear so much now he sees it hurts her."
"She's a dear little thing," I interrupted, impatiently; "but, Miss Dinsmore, do you know Mr. Bray may have all the blacksmith-work to himself now? for I'm going to town for the rest of the summer and autumn."
"You don't say so, Sandy! Well, old Dr. Allen wasn't one of us, as I tell 'em, and there's no sort of reason why you should be; and your mother was a real born lady, though she was so gentle-spoken 't wasn't half the women could tell the difference between her and them."
"But, Miss Dinsmore," I said, "I don't expect to forget my old friends, because I hope to do better somewhere else than here. I shall often come down to Warren."
"Oh, yes, you'll come down, I don't mistrust that," she replied, slowly nodding her green calash, "as long as the schoolmarm is at the Hill; but Annie will look paler than ever. She thinks a sight of you, poor thing, and it will never be the same to her. She loves you like—a sister," added Miss Dinsmore, the tears in her faded blue eyes, and her sense of womanly modesty supplying the familiar title.
We were very near the Variety Store. If I could for a moment drift away from this annoying theme!
"How did you like Mr. Leopold, that afternoon I introduced him to you, Miss Dinsmore?" I asked, in desperation.
"Oh! ah! Well, Sandy, to speak plain, I've seen him a matter of three or four times, may-be, since. He set down, quite friendly-like, to a bit of supper, last time he come. I suppose he feels lonely; he seems pleasant-spoken, and is liked by everybody round here; poor man, he oughtn't to be without a mate. He's taken a great likin' to Annie Bray; but then, of course, he's got some sense of what's becomin'; she's years too young for him."
"Too young! I should think so," indignantly; "he's old enough to be her grandfather."
"No, Sandy,—no, I think not," said Miss Dinsmore, pausing thoughtfully at her door-step. "Old Mr. Bray would have been nigh upon eighty come next harvest; but then Annie has nobody to look out for her now you know, exceptin' Amos, who a'n't over wide-awake, between you and me, though an honester man never lived."