“That’s true,” said Lanty. “I did want you badly.”
Her eyes were wavering beneath his masterful regard, but she said—“Oh, you _did_ want me! Don’t you now?” The words were brave, but her eyes fell.
“Mabella,” he said—silence. “Mabella, look at me.” Slowly she raised her eyes and crimsoned. “Do you know now?” he asked lovingly. “Ah, what a wicked teasing bird it is when its wings are free, but after all they are gone to the barn and——” he advanced a step.
“Lanty!” said Mabella, and in an instant he was grave.
“Dear girl,” he said, “you don’t think I would do anything to make you feel badly?”
The warning shriek of the whistle came to them.
She folded it with an adorable air of anxiety and precision, and stood on tiptoe to lay it on his shoulders and again on tiptoe to knot it under his chin, a process Lanty rendered arduous by putting down his chin and imprisoning her hands, a performance he found most satisfying. But at length he was off, and Mabella watched him round the corner of the barn, and then went indoors to attack the chaos upon the table with a good heart.
“Spooning her young man in the garding,” said Sally, emerging from her shell.
“Of all the impses I ever see!” ejaculated Temperance. “G’long and fetch in some wood.” Sally departed.
“Vashti’s in the garden peeling apples for supper,” continued Temperance to Mabella, with an attempt at unconsciousness. Mabella gave her a hug.
“It’s a sugar plum for Mr. Martin because you were bad to him, isn’t it?”
Mabella blushed, and an irrepressible ripple of laughter broke from her.
“Well, you needn’t laugh,” said Temperance. “Mr. Martin thinks Vashti’s just about right. Well, there’s no accountin’ for taste. ‘Everyone to their taste,’ as the old woman said when she kissed her cow.”
“Temperance!” said Mabella, “you don’t mean——”
Temperance nodded oracularly, “Nathan thinks so too.”
“Well!” said Mabella, and relapsed into silence. Here was news for Lanty. If Nathan and Temperance thought so it must be so. A fellow feeling not only makes us kind but often very acute; and in all Dole there were no such keen eyes for any “goin’s on” (as courtship was disrespectfully designated) as those of Temperance and Nathan.
“Love, it is a funny thing; It puzzles the young and the old; It’s much like a dish of boarding-house hash, And many a man gets sold.”