Mildred Keith - Complete 7 Book Collection. Finley Martha
good. How soon?"
"In about half an hour, I believe she said. So you'd better hear Ada's lessons and have them out of the way."
It was some weeks now since Ada's heart had been rejoiced by a final deliverance from Miss Drybread's control and a return to the instruction of her sister. Mr. Lord still kept up his class and Mildred's zeal for study had not abated, but the minister had a funeral to attend at a distant point that afternoon; so there would be no recitations to interfere with the pleasure of a day with Claudina. Celestia Ann still kept her position in the family, and though only ten o'clock, the house was in order, and dinner and tea would require no supervision by the eldest daughter of the house.
Claudina brought her sewing, and the two passed an uneventful, but pleasant day together, chatting over their work or reading aloud in turn; for Claudina was nearly as great a lover of books as was Mildred.
Their talk was not largely of their neighbors, but some jests passed between them at Ransquattle's expense. They were quite severe in their criticisms, as young things are too apt to be; but if the ears of the victim burned it was not enough to prevent the act of folly he had in contemplation.
Tea was over, Miss Hunsinger had removed the dishes to the kitchen; Mildred spread a bright colored cover over the table, placed the candles on it, and she and Claudina settled themselves to their sewing again; Zillah and Ada were the only other occupants of the room, Rupert having gone out.
Presently there came a knock at the outer door.
"I'll go," said Ada, running to open it.
A man, Nicholas Ransquattle, stood on the threshold. Stepping past the child without speaking, he made directly for Mildred, and silently extended his right hand, between the thumb and forefinger of which he held a letter.
In a sort of maze the girl took it, and with one of his profound obeisances, of one of which Cyril had remarked, "I thought he was going to squattle on the stove when he put his head down so low," he withdrew without having spoken a word.
They could hear the crackling of the snow under his heavy tread as he walked away.
"O Milly, what is it? what is it? what did he bring it for? had he been to the post-office?" the little girls were asking with eager curiosity.
Mildred turned to Claudina. They looked into each other's eyes for a moment, then burst into a simultaneous hearty laugh.
"Did ever you see such a comical performance?"
"Never! It's addressed to you of course?"
"Yes."
Seizing a candle, laughing and blushing, "Come, help me to read it," Mildred said. "We'll go up stairs where we won't be disturbed."
"Mayn't we go too? mayn't we know what your letter's about?" pleaded the little girls as the older ones were hurrying away.
"No, no! tisn't the sort for children like you to know about," laughed the sister. "Be good and stay here. We won't be gone long; and some day, perhaps, I'll tell you what it says."
They hurried through the kitchen where Miss Hunsinger was vigorously setting things to rights, up the crooked stairway and on into Aunt Wealthy's room, fastened the door and proceeded to examine the missive.
It was an offer to Miss Mildred Keith, of the heart, hand and fortune of the writer, Nicholas Ransquattle, who denominated himself her devoted worshiper and slave, and addressed her as an angel and the loveliest and sweetest of created beings. The girls giggled over it at first, but at length Mildred threw it down in supreme disgust.
"Such stuff and nonsense! it's perfectly sickening! I'm anything but an angel; especially when I lose my temper. And I believe I'm losing it now; for I feel insulted by an offer from such a conceited booby!"
"Somebody's coming!" exclaimed Claudina.
"Yes; Rupert. I know his step. Well, Ru, what is it?" as the boy rapped lightly on the door.
"Why before you answer that letter and accept the fellow, let me tell you something."
Mildred threw open the door.
"Who told you I had one?"
"The children told me about old Nick bringing you a letter," he answered laughing, but looking angry too, "and it's easy enough to guess the subject; particularly since I heard a bit of news over yonder at the smithy. Gote Lightcap says he heard him—old Nick—boasting this morning, before several young men, that he was going to marry Mildred Keith."
For a minute or more Mildred did not speak; she had probably never felt so angry in all her life.
"The conceited puppy!" she cried at last, "wouldn't I like to take some of it out of him!"
"Good for you!" cried Rupert clapping his hands. "I knew you'd be mad. And wouldn't I like to horsewhip him for his impudence?"
"But it isn't right," said Mildred, already cooling down a little and ashamed of her outburst. "You couldn't thrash him, Ru, but instead you shall, if you will, have the pleasure of carrying him my answer."
"Tell me what it is first."
Mildred took the letter and wrote, in pencil, beneath the signature, "The above offer is positively declined; all future visits on the part of the writer also," and signed her name. "There, return it," she said, "with the information that it is my final reply."
Chapter Sixteenth.
"Oh jealousy! thou bane of pleasing friendship,
Thou worst invader of our tender bosoms:
How does thy rancour poison all our softness,
And turn our gentle natures into bitterness!"
—Rowe.
The news was too good to keep, and Rupert could not forbear stopping at the smithy on his return and giving Gotobed a hint of how matters stood.
To say that the certainty of a decided rejection of Ransquattle's suit lifted a burden of anxiety from young Lightcap's mind, is not an over-estimate of the relief the boy's communication afforded him.
He had been moody and depressed since his visit of the morning to Ransquattle's shop, and had refused to give Rhoda Jane any satisfaction as to his intentions in regard to making one of the sleighing party of the following evening. She was therefore agreeably surprised when toward bed-time he came, in quite a merry mood, into the kitchen where she sat sewing alone, their mother having stepped out to see a neighbor, to tell her that he had decided to go.
"Well, I'm glad of it," she said, "and who are you going to take?"
He colored at the question and answered almost doggedly, "I'm going after Sarah Miller."
"Why don't you ask Mildred Keith?"
"'Cause there ain't no use; Ormsby's headed me off there."
"Yes; an' if you don't look out, with yer pokin' ways, he'll head you off altogether, and marry her afore you know it."
"She ain't goin' off in such a hurry," he muttered, drumming on the table with his fingers; then jumping up from his chair and going over to the stove, making a pretense of warming himself that he might avoid the keen scrutiny of his sister's sharp eyes; "but what's the use o' me a tryin' with all them fellers round?"
"Gote Lightcap, I'm ashamed of you!" exclaimed Rhoda Jane. "If I was a man I'd have more pluck by a long shot. 'Twouldn't be me that would let any feller get ahead where I was amind to go in and win."
"You don't know nothin' about it," he retorted, lighting a candle and stalking off to bed.
"Dear me, if he only had half my spunk!" said Rhoda Jane, looking after him with scornful eyes and a curling lip.
The wish was echoed more than once in his