'But I don't want a husband, Sir.'
'There's no telling how soon you may, Lina; I feel myself to be failing daily, and when I am gone, my child, it will be all poor Loyd can do to take care of his mother.'
'Can I not help him? Am I not stronger than Loyd? Would it not be happiness enough to work for Loyd, and Loyd's mother?' thought Paulina; but she hemmed, and coughed, and said nothing.
'It would be a comfort to me,' continued the old man, 'to see you settled in a home of your own before I die.' He paused, but there was no reply. 'I did not say a word when William Strong was after you—I did not like the stock; nor when the young lawyer sent his fine presents—as Loyd said, 'he had more gab than wit;' nor when poor Charles Mosely was, as it were, dying for you, for, though his prospects were fine in Ohio, I felt, and so did Mrs. Barnard, and so did Loyd, as if we could not have you go so far away from us; but now, my child, the case is different. Mr. Lovejoy has one of the best estates in the county; he is none of your flighty, here to-day and gone to-morrow folks, but a substantial, reliable person, and I think, and Loyd said—' Here the brands fell apart; and, while Paulina was breathless to hear what Loyd said, the old colonel rose to adjust them. He had broken the thread, and did not take it up in the right place. 'As I was saying, my child,' he resumed, 'my life is very uncertain, and I think, and Loyd thinks—'
What Loyd thought Paulina did not learn, for at this moment the door opened, and Loyd entered.
Loyd Barnard was of the Edwin or Wilfred order; one of those humble and generous spirits that give all, neither asking nor expecting a return. He seemed born to steal quietly and alone through the shady paths of life. A cast from a carriage in his infancy had, without producing any mutilation or visible injury, given a fatal shock to his constitution. He had no disease within the reach of art, but a delicacy, a fragility, that rendered him incapable of continuous exertion or application of any sort. A merciful Providence provides compensations, or, at least, alleviations, for all the ills that flesh is heir to; and Loyd Barnard, in abundant leisure for reading, which he passionately loved, in the tranquillity of a perfectly resigned temper, and in a universal sympathy with all that feel, enjoy, and suffer, had little reason to envy the active and prosperous, who are bustling and struggling through the chances and changes of this busy life. His wants were few, and easily supplied by the results of the desultory employments he found in the village, in the intervals of his attention to the post-office. As much of what we call virtue is constitutional, so we suppose was Loyd's contentment; if it was not virtue, it was happiness, for, till of late, he had felt no more anxiety for the future than nature's commoners—the birds and flowers.
'Ah, my son,' said the old gentleman, 'you have come just in the right time—but where is Lina gone?'
'She went out as I came in, Sir, and I thought she looked as if she had been weeping.'
'Weeping!' echoed the colonel; and 'Weeping!' reëchoed the old lady; and 'could we have hurt her feelings?' asked both in the same breath.