Nature's Serial Story Part 42

"Well, I was possessed, and never was there such a kind, gentle exorcist.

I have seen Miss Hargrove to-day; I had just parted from her."

"Did you say anything?"

"No, Amy. How could I, until I had told you? I felt I was bound to you by all that can bind a man."

"Oh, Burt, suppose I had not released you, but played Shylock, what would you have done?" and her laugh rang out again in intense merriment.

"I had no fears of that," he replied, ruefully. "You are the last one to practice Mrs. MacStinger's tactics. My fear was that you and Miss Hargrove both would send me West as a precious good riddance."

"Well, it was square of you, as Alf says, to come to me first, and I appreciate it, but I should not have resented the omission. Will you forgive my curiosity if I ask what is the next move in the campaign? I've been reading about the war, you know, and I am quite military in my ideas."

"I have Miss Hargrove's permission to call to-night. It wasn't given very cordially, and she asked me to bring you."

"No, I thank yon."

"Oh, I told her she would have to forgive me if I came alone. I meant to have it out to-day, if old Chaos came again." When Amy's renewed laughter so subsided that he could speak, he resumed: "I'm going over there after supper, to ask her father for permission to pay my addresses, and if he won't give it, I shall tell him I will pay them all the same--that I shall use every effort in my power to win his daughter. I don't want a dollar of his money, but I'm bound to have the girl if she'll ever listen to me after knowing all you know."

Amy's laugh ceased, and she again clasped her hands on his arm. "Dear Burt," she said, "your course now seems to me manly and straightforward.

I saw the strait you were in, but did not think you felt it so keenly. In going West I feared you were about to run away from it. However Gertrude may treat you, you have won my respect by your downright truth. She may do as she pleases, but she can't despise you now. There goes your horse to the stable. He has learned this afternoon that you are in no state of mind to take care of him."

CHAPTER LV

BURT TELLS HIS LOVE AGAIN

Webb appeared at the supper-table the personification of quiet geniality, but Amy thought she had never seen him look so hollow-eyed. The long strain was beginning to tell on him, decidedly, and to-night he felt as if he had received a mortal blow. But with indomitable courage he hid his wound, and seemed absorbed in a conversation with Leonard and his father about the different varieties of apples, and their relative value. Amy saw that his mother was looking at him anxiously, and she did not wonder.

He was growing thin even to gauntness.

Burt also was an arrant dissembler, and on rising from the table remarked casually that he was going over to bid Miss Hargrove good-by, as she would return to town on the morrow.

"She'll surely come and see us before she goes," Mrs. Clifford remarked.

"It seems to me she hasn't been very sociable of late."

"Certainly," said Amy. "She'll be over in the morning. She told me she was coming to say good-by to us all, and she has asked me to visit her.

Come, Webb, you look all tired out to-night. Let me read to you. I'll stumble through the dryest scientific treatise you have if I can see you resting on the sofa."

"That's ever so kind of you, Amy, and I appreciate it more than you imagine, but I'm going out this evening."

"Oh, of course, sisters are of no account. What girl are _you_ going to see?"

"No girl whatever. I am too old and dull to entertain the pretty creatures."

"Don't be fis.h.i.+ng. You know one you could entertain if she isn't a pretty creature, but then she's only a sister who doesn't know much."

"I'm sorry--I must go," he said, a little abruptly, for her lovely, half-laughing, half-reproachful face, turned to his, contained such mocking promise of happiness that he could not look upon it. What was his urgent business? His rapid steps as he walked mile after mile indicated that the matter was pressing indeed; but, although it was late before he returned, he had spoken to no one. The house was dark and silent except that a light was burning in Burt's room. And his momentous fortunes the reader must now follow.

Miss Hargrove, with a fluttering heart, heard the rapid feet of his horse as he rode up the avenue. Truly, he was coming at a lover's pace. The door-bell rang, she heard him admitted, and expected the maid's tap at her door to follow. Why did it not come? Were the tumultuous throbs of her heart so loud that she could not hear it? What had become of him? She waited and listened in vain. She opened her door slightly; there was no sound. She went to her window. There below, like a shadow, stood a saddled horse. Where was the knight? Had the stupid girl shown him into the drawing-room and left him there? Surely the well-trained servant had never been guilty of such a blunder before. Could it have been some one else who had come to see her father on business? She stole down the stairway in a tremor of apprehension, and strolled into the parlor in the most nonchalant manner imaginable. It was lighted, but empty, and her expression suddenly became one of troubled perplexity. She returned to the hall, and started as if she had seen an apparition. There on the rack hung Burt's hat, as natural as life. Voices reached her ear from her father's study. She took a few swift steps toward it, then fled to her room, and stood panting before her mirror, which reflected a young lady in a costume charmingly ill adapted to "packing."

How flow swiftly the minutes pa.s.sed! how eternally long they were! Would she be sent for? _When_ would she be sent for? "It was honorable in him to speak to papa first, and papa would not, could not, answer him without consulting me. I cannot be treated as a child any longer," she muttered, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes. "Papa loves me," she murmured, in swift alternation of gentle feeling. "He could not make my happiness secondary to a paltry sum of money."

Meanwhile Burt was pleading his cause. Mr. Hargrove had greeted him with no little surprise. The parting of the young people had not promised any such interview.

"Have you spoken to my daughter on this subject?" Mr. Hargrove asked, gravely, after the young fellow had rather incoherently made known his errand.

"No, sir," replied Burt, "I have not secured your permission. At the same time," he added, with an ominous flash in his blue eyes, "sincerity compels me to say that I could not take a final refusal from any lips except those of your daughter, and not readily from hers. I would not give up effort to win her until convinced that any amount of patient endeavor was useless. I should not persecute her, but I would ask her to reconsider an adverse answer as often as she would permit, and I will try with all my soul to render myself more worthy of her."

"In other words," began Mr. Hargrove, severely, "if I should decline this honor, I should count for nothing."

"No, sir, I do not mean that, and I hope I haven't said it, even by implication. Your consent that I should have a fair field in which to do my best would receive from me boundless grat.i.tude. What I mean to say is, that I could not give her up; I should not think it right to do so. This question is vital to me, and I know of no reason," he added, a little haughtily, "why I should be refused a privilege which is considered the right of every gentleman."

"I have not in the slightest degree raised the question of your being a gentleman, Mr. Clifford. Your course in coming to me before revealing your regard to my daughter proves that you are one. But you should realize that you are asking a great deal of me. My child's happiness is my first and only consideration. You know the condition of life to which my daughter has been accustomed. It is right and natural that I should also know something of your prospects, your ability to meet the obligations into which you wish to enter."

Poor Burt flushed painfully, and hesitated. After a moment he answered, with a dignity and an evident sincerity which won golden opinions from Mr. Hargrove: "I shall not try to mislead you in the least on this point.

For my own sake I wish that your daughter were far poorer than I am. I can say little more than that I could give her a home now and every comfort of life. I could not now provide for her the luxury to which she has been accustomed. But I am willing to wait and eager to work. In youth and health and a fair degree of education I have some capital in addition to the start in life which my father has promised to his sons. What could not Miss Hargrove inspire a man to do?"

The man of experience smiled in spite of himself at Burt's frank enthusiasm and naivete. The whole affair was so different from anything that he had ever looked forward to! Instead of a few formalities between himself and a wealthy suitor whom his wife, and therefore all the world, would approve of, here he was listening to a farmer's son, with the consciousness that he must yield, and not wholly unwilling to do so.

Moreover, this preposterous young man, so far from showing any awe of him, had almost defied him from the start, and had plainly stated that the father's wealth was the only objection to the daughter. Having seen the drift of events, Mr. Hargrove had long since informed himself thoroughly about the Clifford family, and had been made to feel that the one fact of his wealth, which Burt regretted, was almost his only claim to superiority. Burt was as transparent as a mountain brook, and quite as impetuous. The gray-haired man sighed, and felt that he would give all his wealth in exchange for such youth. He knew his daughter's heart, and felt that further parleying was vain, although he foresaw no easy task in reconciling his wife to the match. He was far from being heartbroken himself, however, for there was such a touch of nature in Burt, and in the full, strong love waiting to reward the youth, that his own heart was stirred, and in the depths of his soul he knew that this was better than giving his child to a jaded millionaire. "I have money enough for both,"

he thought. "As she said, she is rich enough to follow her heart. It's a pity if we can't afford an old-fas.h.i.+oned love-match."

Burt was respectfully impatient under Mr. Hargrove's deep thought and silence.

At last the father arose and gave him his hand, saying: "You have been honest with me, and that, with an old merchant, counts for a great deal.

I also perceive you love my daughter for herself. If she should ever inform me that you are essential to her happiness I shall not withhold my consent."

Burt seized his hand with a grasp that made it ache, as he said, "Every power I have, sir, shall be exerted that you may never regret this kindness."

"If you make good that promise, Mr. Clifford, I shall become your friend should your wooing prove successful. If you will come to the parlor I will tell Miss Hargrove that you are here."

He went up the stairs slowly, feeling that he was crossing the threshold of a great change. How many thoughts pa.s.sed through his mind as he took those few steps! He saw his child a little black-eyed baby in his arms; she was running before him trundling her hoop; she came to him with contracted brow and half-tearful eyes, bringing a knotty sum in fractions, and insisting petulantly that they were very "vulgar" indeed; she hung on his arm, a shy girl of fifteen, blus.h.i.+ngly conscious of the admiring eyes that followed her; she stood before him again in her first radiant beauty as a _debutante_, and he had dreamed of the proudest alliance that the city could offer; she looked into his eyes, a pale, earnest woman, and said, "Papa, he saved my life at the risk of his own."

True, true, Mr. Clifford had not spoken of that, and Mr. Hargrove had not thought of it in the interview so crowded with considerations. His heart relented toward the youth as it had not done before. Well, well, since it was inevitable, he was glad to be the one who should first bring the tidings of this bold wooer's purpose. "Trurie will never forget this moment," he mattered, as he knocked at her door, "nor my part in her little drama." O love, how it craves even the crumbs that fall from the table of its idol!

"Trurie," he began, as he entered, "you had better dress. Bless me, I thought you were packing!"

"I--I was."

"You were expecting some one?"

"Mr. Clifford said he would call--to bid me good-by, I suppose."

"Was that all you supposed, Trurie?"

"Indeed, papa, I told him I was going to town to-morrow, and he asked if he might call."

"Did he speak of his object?"