The Girl at Cobhurst. Frank Richard Stockton
bring herself to mind this scolding very much now. Occasionally she had scolded Miss Panney, and the old lady had never been angry.
"I shall not go to the city," she said, with a smile; "but I will write, and ask all the questions. Then our consciences will be easier."
Miss Panney rose to her feet.
"Do it, I beg of you," she said, "and do it this morning. And now, Dora, if you walked here, I will drive you home in my phaeton, for you ought to send that address to Mrs. Tolbridge without delay."
As the old roan jogged away from the doctor's house, Miss Panney remarked to her companion, "I needn't have hurried you off so soon, Dora, for it is three hours before the next mail will leave; but I did want Mrs. Tolbridge to sit down at once and write that letter without being interrupted by anything which you might have come to tell her. Of course, the sooner you send her the address, the better."
"The boy shall take it to her as soon as I get home," said Dora.
She very much disliked scoldings, and had not now a word to say against the old body who would frighten the horses. Desirous of turning the conversation in another direction without seeming to force it, "It seems to me," she said, "that Mr. and Miss Haverley ought to have somebody better to cook for them than old Phoebe. I have always looked upon her as a sort of a charwoman, working about from house to house, doing anything that people hired her to do."
"That's just what those Haverleys want," said Miss Panney. "At present, everything is charwork at their place, and as to their food, I don't suppose they think much about it, so that they get enough. At their age they can eat anything."
"How old is Miss Haverley?" asked Dora.
"Miss Haverley!" repeated Miss Panney, "she's nothing but a girl, with her hair down her back and her skirts a foot from the ground. I call her a child."
A shadow came over the soul of Miss Bannister.
Would it be possible, she thought, to maintain, with a girl who did not yet put up her hair or wear long skirts, the intimacy she had hoped to maintain with Mr. Haverley's sister?
Very much the same idea was in the mind of Miss Panney, but she thought it well to speak encouragingly. "I wish, for her brother's sake, the girl were older," said she: "but housekeeping will help to mature her much more quickly than if she had remained at school. And as for school," she added, "it strikes me it would be a good thing for her to go back there—after awhile."
Dora thought this a good opinion, but before she could say anything on the subject, she lifted her eyes, and beheld Ralph Haverley walking down the street toward them. He was striding along at a fine pace, and looked as if he enjoyed it.
"I declare," ejaculated Miss Bannister, "here he is himself. We shall meet him."
"He? who?" and Miss Panney looked from side to side of the road, and the moment she saw the young man, she smiled.
It pleased her that Dora should speak of him as "he," showing that the brother was in her mind when they had been talking of the sister.
Miss Panney drew up to the sidewalk, and Ralph stopped.
He was greatly pleased with the cordial greeting he received from the two ladies. These Thorbury people were certainly very sociable and kind-hearted. The sunlight was on Dora's soul now, and it sparkled in her eyes.
"It was my other hand that I gave you when I met you before," she said, with a charming smile.
"Yes," said Ralph, also with a smile, "and I think I held it an uncommonly long time."
"Indeed you did," said Dora; and they both laughed.
Miss Panney listened in surprise.
"You two seem to know each other better than I supposed," she said. "When did you become acquainted?"
"We have met but once before," replied Dora, "but that was rather a peculiar meeting." And then she told the story of her call at Cobhurst, and of the mare's forelock, and the old lady was delighted with the narration. She had never planned a match which had begun so auspiciously. These young people must be truly congenial, for already a spirit of comradeship seemed to have sprung up between them. But of course that sort of thing could not be kept up to the desirable point without the assistance of the sister. In some way or other, that girl must be managed. Miss Panney determined to give her mind to it.
With Ralph standing close by the side of the phaeton, the reins lying loose on the back of the drowsy roan, and Dora leaning forward from her seat, so as to speak better with the young man, the interview was one of considerable length, and no one seemed to think it necessary that it should be brought to a close. Ralph had come to attend to some business in the town, and had preferred to walk rather than drive the brown mare.
"Did you ever catch that delightfully obstinate creature?" cried Dora.
"And did you give your sister a drive in the gig?"
"Oh, yes," said Ralph, "I easily caught her again, and I curried and polished her up myself, and trimmed her mane and tail and fetlocks, and since she has been having good meals of oats, you can hardly imagine what a sleek-looking beast she has become. We drove her into Thorbury when Miriam returned your call. I am sorry you were not at home, so that you might have seen what a change had come over Mrs. Browning."
Dora looked inquiringly.
"That is the name that Miriam has given to the mare."
Dora laughed.
"If Mrs. Browning is one of your sister's favorite poets," she said, "that will be a bond between us, for I like her poems better than I do her husband's, at least I understand them better. I wonder if your sister will ever ask me to take a drive with her in the gig? I could show her so many pretty places."
"Indeed she will," said Ralph; "but you mustn't think we are going to confine ourselves to that sedate conveyance and the old mare. The colts are old enough to be broken, and when they are ready to drive we shall have a spanking team."
"That will be splendid," exclaimed Dora. "I cannot imagine anything more inspiriting than driving with a pair of freshly broken horses."
Miss Panney gave a little sniff.
"That sort of thing," she said, "sometimes exalts one's spirit so high that it is never again burdened by the body; but all horses have to be broken, and people continue to live."
She smiled as she thought that the pair of young colts which she had taken in hand seemed to give promise of driving together most beautifully. But it would not do to stop here all the morning, and as there was no sign that Dora would tire of asking questions or Ralph of answering them, the old lady gathered up the reins.
"You mustn't be surprised, Mr. Haverley," she said, "if the ladies of Thorbury come a good deal to Cobhurst. We have more time than the gentlemen, and we all want to get well acquainted with your sister, and help her in every way that we can. Miss Bannister is going to drive over very soon and stop for me on the way, so that we shall call on her together."
When the young man had bowed and departed, and the old roan was jogging on, Dora leaned back in the phaeton and said to herself, that, without knowing it, Miss Panney was an angel. When they should go together to Cobhurst, the old lady would be sure to spend her time talking to the girl.
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