One day in the midst of this Sewell was called from his study to see some one who was waiting for him in the reception-room, but who sent in no name by the housemaid.
“I don't know as you remember me,” the visitor said, rising awkwardly, as Sewell came forward with a smile of inquiry. “My name's Barker.”
“Barker?” said the minister, with a cold thrill of instant recognition, but playing with a factitious uncertainty till he could catch his breath in the presence of the calamity. “Oh yes! How do you do?” he said; and then planting himself adventurously upon the commandment to love one's neighbour as one's-self, he added: “I'm very glad to see you!”
In token of his content, he gave Barker his hand and asked him to be seated.
The young man complied, and while Sewell waited for him to present himself in some shape that he could grapple with morally, he made an involuntary study of his personal appearance. That morning, before starting from home by the milk-train that left Willoughby Pastures at 4.5, Barker had given his Sunday boots a coat of blacking, which he had eked out with stove-polish, and he had put on his best pantaloons, which he had outgrown, and which, having been made very tight a season after tight pantaloons had gone out of fashion in Boston, caught on the tops of his boots and stuck there in spite of his efforts to kick them loose as he stood up, and his secret attempts to smooth them down when he had reseated himself. He wore a single-breasted coat of cheap broadcloth, fastened across his chest with a carnelian clasp-button of his father's, such as country youth wore thirty years ago, and a belated summer scarf of gingham, tied in a breadth of knot long since abandoned by polite society.
Sewell had never thought his wife's reception-room very splendidly appointed, but Barker must have been oppressed by it, for he sat in absolute silence after resuming his chair, and made no sign of intending to open the matter upon which he came. In the kindness of his heart Sewell could not refrain from helping him on.
“When did you come to Boston?” he asked with a cheeriness which he was far from feeling.
“This morning,” said Barker briefly, but without the tremor in his voice which Sewell expected.
“You've never been here before, I suppose,” suggested Sewell, with the vague intention of generalising or particularising the conversation, as the case might be.
Barker abruptly rejected the overture, whatever it was. “I don't know as you got a letter from me a spell back,” he said.