“About what?” asked the very much astonished young man.
“That dreadful bell!” exclaimed Effie.
“Oh! I’d forgotten there was one,” replied Brayton. “You see, I’ve good news this morning. My mother and sister are coming to see me——”
“How very pleasant!” interrupted Effie; “and they know nothing about the bell—there, my hat. Oh, dear me! there it goes again!”
There it went, sure enough, Effie’s very pretty hat, with George Brayton after it halfway across the green, and at that moment and with the breath of that one sudden gust, the obnoxious character in the steeple had uttered a grating and sonorous warning that there was life and mischief in him yet.
Just that one malicious effort did the village monster make, but that was enough, and in five minutes more there were a hundred pairs of eyes straining up at the steeple on all sides, and Dr. Dryer, accompanied by his faithful “third,” was striding across the green with the key in his hand.
Even in that moment of concentrated thought and feeling, however, Mrs. Dryer’s vision swept in all the surrounding circumstances, and she exclaimed, in the tone of an injured angel:
“I told you so. There’s Effie with George Brayton out there on the green, and she’s bare-headed, too. It’s awful! There, he’s had her hat in his hand. Doctor, what do you say to such doings? Are you a post?”
“A humble pillar, I hope, Dorothy Jane,” replied the Doctor, but there was no time for anything more.
“Are you not going to help them?” asked Effie of Brayton.