"I'm getting on to forty," he said to his sister, "and I am beginning the world over again! One woman has given me a disappointment that I will carry to the grave; and another woman is laughing at me, for she has got all my saved siller, and more too; forbye, she is like to marry Bob Severs and share it with him. Then I have them weary notes to meet beyond all. There never was a man so badly used as I have been!"
No one pitied him much. Whatever his acquaintances said to his face he knew right well their private opinion was that he had received _just what he deserved_.
"When I was sixteen I was considered so. I was very like you then, Julia. I am forty-three now, remember."
"Did you ever have an offer--an offer of marriage, I mean, aunt?"
"No. Well, that is not true; I did have one offer."
"What ever happened, then? Was he poor, or crippled or something dreadful"
"Yes, Julia. I never left Ryelands until I was thirty. This happened when I was sixteen."
"Was he a farmer's son in the neighborhood?"
"Oh, aunt, how interesting! Put down your embroidery and tell me about it; you cannot see to work longer."
Perhaps after so many years of silence a sudden longing for sympathy and confidence seized the elder lady, for she let her work fall from her hands, and smiling sadly, said:
"Twenty-seven years ago I was standing one afternoon by the gate at Ryelands. All the work had been finished early, and my mother and two elder sisters had gone to the village to see a friend. I had watched them a little way down the hillside, and was turning to go into the house, when I saw a stranger on horseback coming up the road. He stopped and spoke to mother, and this aroused my curiosity; so I lingered at the gate. He stopped when he reached it, fastened his horse, and asked, 'Is Mr. Wakefield in?'
"I said, 'father was in the barn, and I could fetch him,' which I immediately did.
"He was a dark, unpleasant-looking man, and had a masterful way with him, even to father, that I disliked; but after a short, business-like talk, apparently satisfactory to both, he went away without entering the house. Father put his hands in his pockets and watched him out of sight; then, looking at me, he said, 'Put the spare rooms in order, Phoebe.'