“It isn’t often I get the chance to play the tyrant over you,” Mrs. Williams remarked, and began giving orders to have sundry hot soap-stones, and gay afghans put into the carriage.
“Mother,” her son exclaimed, “I am ashamed of having such a fuss made over me! I will run away. I will leave the country. I will go back to bed.”
He really blushed, and seemed annoyed.
They went out, and there was the parade of getting settled in their places, Mrs. Williams pleasantly conscious, and her son distressfully so, that several of the neighbors were looking on with interest. The inquiries for Dick had, indeed, been constant from all the neighborhood, even from persons with whom they had no acquaintance. Not a woman, young or old, but had looked kindly on the young sailor, and known when he sailed away, and when he came back; not a child but smiled and nodded to him through the window when he passed. Of course they had all surmised that the lovely young girl whom they had seen there before, and who had now been taking care of him, was one day to be his wife. She divided their attention with him as she stood on the step, and watched him drive away.
It was the hour of the steamer’s departure; and when Edith was alone, she shut herself into her chamber, and, kneeling there, prayed fervently that God would keep the traveller wherever he might wander, and that, though far from her, he might be ever near to heaven.
She did not leave her room when she heard the others come home; and after a while Mrs. Williams came to say that Dick would like to see her.
“We had a delightful drive, and he is not a bit the worse for it,” the mother said. “He will be well enough to go to Mrs. Cleaveland’s to see you, now; but I think he wants to have a good talk with you before you go away. He told me not to let any one interrupt.”
Edith knew well what the summons meant, and with one upward aspiration, “O Spirit of light and truth!” she went immediately.
Dick was sitting in his arm-chair by the window when she entered, and he looked around with a bright smile and greeting, “Well, little sister!” and motioned her to a chair near him.
On hearing that title, she stopped, and clasped her hands on her bosom.