“I thought I would have something ready to exhibit if I went to Boston this winter,” said Rachel, very demurely. “Do you like the subjects?”
“This circumscribes me fearfully,” said Mrs. Farrell, not heeding the question. “I can never snub you any more, Rachel. From this moment I’m afraid of you. I’m not hurt or angry; I’m frightened. Aren’t they splendid?” she asked, joyously, of Rachel, as if they were two indifferent connoisseurs of the work. “You’ve got me exactly; and Blossom, why, she looks perfectly shocked. Anybody can see what an unsophisticated cow she is; you’re a country cow, Blossom, or you wouldn’t be astonished at such an innocent little maneuver as that. Your men are not so good as your cows and women, Rachel. Mr. Easton isn’t such a stick as that; you know he isn’t. Oh, Rachel,” said Mrs. Farrell, sinking upon a seat behind a school desk and leaning her elbow on it, chin in hand, while she brooded on the last sketch with effective eyes, “how awfully embarrassing men are! Here is Mr. Easton, for example, who has known me a week—a week but barely two—and guess what he’s been saying to me this afternoon!” She changed her posture and sat with her hands in her lap, regarding Rachel as one does the person whom one has posed with a conundrum.
“Why, I don’t know,” said Rachel, in a voice as faint as the blush on her cheek.
“Not,” resumed Mrs. Farrell, “that he seems to consider it at all precipitate! I’ve had to fight it off ever since last Sunday; I’ve no doubt he thinks he’s waited a proper time, as they say of widowers. Why, Rachel, he’s been making love to me, that’s what.”
Rachel hung down her head a little, as if the confidence scared her, and played with a corner of some paper on the desk before her, but she did not say anything. She was not apparently surprised, but silenced.
“Well,” said Mrs. Farrell, after a while, “haven’t you any observations to offer, Rachel? What should you do to him if you were in my place? Come!”
“I should think you would know,” faltered the girl, “if you liked him.”
“Like him? Oh, don’t I like a blond, regular-featured young man of good mind and independent property, and no more pretense than—well, say pie, for instance! But that isn’t the question. The question is whether I ought to marry such a man. Yes, I really think I have a scruple or two, on this point. I do love him—sort of. But, oh dear me! I don’t suppose I love him rightly, or enough of it. I could imagine myself doing it. I can see myself,” said Mrs. Farrell, half-closing her eyes as if to examine the scene critically, “in some moods that I could love him with unutterable devotion in. But I should have to have something tremendous to draw me out; a ten-horse-power calamity; and then perhaps I shouldn’t stay drawn out. It brings the tears into my eyes to think how, if he had lost the use of his limbs, say, and we were dreadfully poor, I would slave myself to the bone for his sake—for about ten minutes! But a saint, a hero in perfect repair, with plenty of money, it’s quite another thing.”
“If you were ever in earnest, Mrs. Farrell,” said Rachel, sternly, “you ought to be afraid to talk as you do.”
“Why, so I am, aunty—so I am,” retorted Mrs. Farrell, incorrigibly. “It sends the cold chills over me to talk as I do, but I can’t help it. Don’t you suppose I know how nice Mr. Easton is? I do. He is the very soul of truth and honor and all uprightness. He is the noblest and best man in the world. But what could I do with him, or he with me? No, ma’am, it isn’t such a simple affair as liking or not liking. This is a case of conscience, I’d have you to know, such as doesn’t often turn up in West Pekin.”