“Now I know it ain't as grand as you'd get at home,” said Mr. Jenney. “It ain't what we'd give you, Miss Victoria,—that's only simple home fare,—it's what you'd give us. It's the honour of having you,” he added,—and Victoria thought that no courtier could have worded an invitation better. She would not be missed at Fairview. Her mother was inaccessible at this hour, and the servants would think of her as dining at Leith. The picture of the great, lonely house, of the ceremonious dinner which awaited her single presence, gave her an irresistible longing to sit down with these simple, kindly souls. Austen was the only obstacle. He, too, had changed his clothes, and now appeared, smiling at her behind Mrs. Jenney. The look of prospective disappointment in the good woman's face decided Victoria.
“I'll stay, with pleasure,” she said.
Mr. Jenney pronounced grace. Victoria sat across the table from Austen, and several times the consciousness of his grave look upon her as she talked heightened the colour in her cheek. He said but little during the meal. Victoria heard how well Mrs. Jenney's oldest son was doing in Springfield, and how the unmarried daughter was teaching, now, in the West. Asked about Europe, that land of perpetual mystery to the native American, the girl spoke so simply and vividly of some of the wonders she had seen that she held the older people entranced long after the meal was finished. But at length she observed, with a start, the gathering darkness. In the momentary happiness of this experience, she had been forgetful.
“I will drive home with you, if you'll allow me,” said Austen.
“Oh, no, I really don't need an escort, Mr. Vane. I'm so used to driving about at night, I never think of it,” she answered.
“Of course he'll drive home with you, dear,” said Mrs. Jenney. “And, Jabe, you'll hitch up and go and fetch Austen back.”
“Certain,” Mr. Jenney agreed.
The rain had ceased, and the indistinct outline of the trees and fences betrayed the fact that the clouds were already thinning under the moon. Austen had lighted the side lamps of the runabout, revealing the shining pools on the road as they drove along—for the first few minutes in silence.
“It was very good of you to stay,” he said; “you do not know how much pleasure you have given them.”
Her feminine appreciation responded to the tact of this remark: it was so distinctly what he should have said.