“You feel sure,” asked Mrs. Gaylord, impartially, “that Marcia wa'n't too particular?”
“No, Miranda, I don't feel sure of anything, except that it's past your bed-time. You better go. I'll sit up awhile yet. I came in because I couldn't settle my mind to anything out there.”
He took off his hat in token of his intending to spend the rest of the evening at home, and put it on the table at his elbow.
His wife sewed at the mending in her lap, without offering to act upon his suggestion. “It's plain to be seen that she can't get along without him.”
“She'll have to, now,” replied the Squire.
“I'm afraid,” said Mrs. Gaylord, softly, “that she'll be down sick. She don't look as if she'd slept any great deal since she's been gone. I d' know as I like very much to see her looking the way she does. I guess you've got to take her off somewheres.”
“Why, she's just been off, and couldn't stay!”
“That's because she thought he was here yet. But if he's gone, it won't be the same thing.”
“Well, we've got to fight it out, some way,” said the Squire. “It wouldn't do to give in to it now. It always was too much of a one-sided thing, at the best; and if we tried now to mend it up, it would be ridiculous. I don't believe he would come back at all, now, and if he did, he wouldn't come back on any equal terms. He'd want to have everything his own way. M-no!” said the Squire, as if confirming himself in a conclusion often reached already in his own mind, “I saw by the way he began to-night that there wasn't anything to be done with him. It was fight from the word go.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Gaylord, with gentle, sceptical interest in the outcome, “if you've made up your mind to that, I hope you'll be able to carry it through.”