Missy. Miriam Coles Harris
said. Missy flushed between embarrassment and indignation. Was it possible that Mr. Andrews was a brute, and was not at this moment on the stairs on his way to this lonely lovely sufferer?
Mrs. Andrews did not want her to go—she stayed at least ten minutes, standing ready to depart. As she went down the stairs, the servant passed through the hall, and she heard him announce dinner to his master, who promptly came in from the piazza, by which means, he and Missy were brought face to face in the hall near the dining-room door. Mr. Andrews probably felt, but did not express any astonishment at seeing a strange young lady in white muslin, without even the conventionality of a hat upon her head, walking about his temporary castle; he merely bowed, and, being very hungry, went into the dining-room to get his dinner. As for Missy, she felt it was very awkward, and she was also full of resentment. She inclined her head in the slightest manner, and only glanced at him to see whether he was remarkable-looking, and whether he had any right to be a tyrant and a brute. It takes a very handsome man to have any such right as that, and Mr. Andrews was by no means handsome. He was not tall—rather a short man, and almost a stout man. Not that exactly, but still not as slight as he ought to have been for his height. He was not young either—certainly forty possibly more. He had blue eyes, and hair and whiskers of light brown. The expression of his face was rather stern. He was evidently thinking of something that gave him no pleasure when he looked up and saw Missy, and there was perhaps nothing in the sight of her that induced him to cast the shadow from his brow. So she did not see that he had a good smile, and that his eyes were particularly intelligent and keen. She hurried past him with the settled belief that he was a monster of cruelty; the odor of the soup, which was particularly good, and the sound of the chair upon the floor as it was pushed up before the lonely table, and the clinking of a glass were added touches to the dark picture.
"I suppose he hasn't given her a thought," she said to herself, as the gate shut after her. "Dinner, imagine it, comes first. He looks like a gourmand; he is a gourmand, I am sure. That soup was perfectly delicious; I wish I had the receipt for it. But he is worse than a gourmand. Gourmands are often good-natured. He is a tyrant, and I hate him. Think of the misery of that poor young thing! How could she have married him? I would give worlds to know her history. He isn't capable of a history. I suppose she must have been very poor, and forced into the marriage by her parents. Nothing else can account for such a mésalliance."
When she entered the parlor, St. John was sitting by his mother's sofa. "How is our young friend?" he said. "Remember I saved his life; so don't put on any airs because you got him to go home."
"It was a great deal harder work," said Missy; "and you like hard work, you say. But, mamma, I have seen her, and she is the loveliest creature—Mrs. Andrews, I mean! She is confined to her room—never leaves it—a hopeless invalid. And he is a brute, an utter brute! I can hardly find words to describe him. He is short and stout, and has a most sinister expression. And now think of this—listen to what I say: He went in to dinner, without going up to her room at all! Can you think of anything more heartless?"
"Oh, yes," said St. John, commonplacely; "not sending her up any dinner would have been worse—not paying her bills—not taking her to the country."
Missy scorned to reply to him, but directed her conversation to her mother. "Her beauty is very remarkable, and she seems so young. The man is certainly forty. I really wish I could find out something about them. She is French, I think, though she speaks without an accent. She is so different from the people one sees every day; she gives you an idea of a different life from ours. And for my part, I am glad to see something of another stratum. Do you know, I think we are very narrow? All women, of course, are from necessity; but it seems to me I have led a smaller life than other women."
"I don't think you need regret it," said her brother, seriously; "it saves you a great deal."
"Pray don't say anything, you who like wicked people."
St. John was "hoist with his own petard."
"Then you think I might enjoy Mr. and Mrs. Andrews?" he said.
"Mr. Andrews would satisfy all your aspirations," returned Missy; "but not his wife, unless it is wicked to be unconventional."
"But how did you find out she was unhappy; I hope she didn't tell you so?" asked Mrs. Varian.
"No, of course she did not! I don't really know how I divined it; but it was most easy to see. And then he did not come up to see her! is not that enough?"
"Perhaps he was hungry—unusually hungry; or perhaps he is a victim to dyspepsia, and cannot go through any excitement upon an empty stomach. You know his doctors may have forbidden him."
"Really, St. John," said Missy, much annoyed, "it is not safe to find fault with a man in your presence. Your class feeling is so strong, I think you would defend him if he had two wives."
"Who knows but that may be the trouble?" he said. "He didn't know which to go to first, and he may have had to send two dinners up. No wonder that he has dyspepsia! That being the case—"
"You are rather illogical for a man. Who said he had dyspepsia? What does that stand upon? Mamma, I want to have the children in here often. Jay is a darling, and as to Gabby—"
"Gabby!" repeated her mother.
"Gabrielle," said Missy, blushing, and glancing anxiously at her brother, to see if he were laughing. "It was Jay called her Gabby—a horrid shortening, certainly. Gabrielle is a lovely name, I think. But what's the matter, St. John? What have I said now?"
"Nothing," said her brother, in a forced, changed voice, as he got up and walked about the room, every sparkle of merriment gone from his eyes.
"It is time for tea, is it not?" said Mrs. Varian.
"Yes, I suppose it is," returned Missy, wearily, getting up and crossing over to ring the bell, as if tea were one of the boundaries of her narrow sphere.
CHAPTER V.
After that, there were daily visits to Mrs. Andrews, daily messages passing between the houses, daily hours with Gabby and Jay upon the beach. It became the most interesting part of Miss Rothermel's life. It was a romance to her, though she thought she was not romantic. Her dream was to do good, a great deal of good, to somebody, all the better if she happened to like the somebody. It was tiresome to do good all the time to Aunt Harriet, who was all the time there ready to be done good to. It was not conceivable that mamma could need her very much—mamma, who had St. John, and who really did not seem an object of compassion at all, rather some one to go to, to get comforted. She was "a-weary" of the few poor people of the place. They seemed inexpressibly "narrow" to her now. She seemed suddenly to have outgrown them. She condemned herself for the time and thought she had bestowed upon them, when she counted up the pitiful results.
"I suppose I have spent a month, and driven forty miles, and talked volumes, if it were all put together, to get that wretched Burney boy to go to Sunday school. And what does it amount to, after all, now that he does go? He carries things in his pockets to eat, and he makes the other children laugh, and he sits on the gravestones during service, and whistles loud enough to have to be hunted away by the sexton every Sunday. No; I shall let him go now; he may come or not, as he sees fit."
It was certainly much pleasanter to sit on the beach and curl Jay's tawny hair, and make him pictures on shells, and teach him verses, and his letters. Gabrielle, with her great dark, side-looking eyes, was not as congenial to Missy, but even she was more satisfactory than the Burney boy, with his dirty hands and terrible dialect. Children without either refinement or innocence are not attractive, and though Missy feared Gabby was not quite innocent, she had a good deal of refinement in appearance and manner. She spoke with a slow, soft manner, and never looked one straight in the eye. She had a passion for jewelry and fine clothes, and made her