The Wayfarers — Part 120

“I suppose you’d like to rest up-stairs to-day, and have your meals in your room,” she went on in a businesslike way. “I’ll send Martha up to pack your trunk for you—that is, if you insist on going—if she’s not too busy. The servants have so much to do to-day.”

“Oh, I can pack it myself,” said Dosia. What did one stab the more matter now? She took Mrs. Leverich’s hand impulsively. “You’ve been so good, so kind to me—you’ve given me so many pretty things,”—her voice sank to a whisper,—“it doesn’t seem to me that I ought to keep them now. I want to give them back to you.”

“What is it you say?” asked Mrs. Leverich impatiently. “You speak so low, I can hardly hear you. Oh, these!” She turned to a little pile of jewel-cases on the table. “Why, I gave them to you to keep. Well, if you feel that way about it—These pearls, perhaps, but the pins were quite inexpensive; do keep them, really, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t, you know.”

“I’d rather not,” said Dosia; and her hostess gathered the things when she went out.

It was a long day—a long, long day. From the bed where Dosia lay, she saw the gray clouds shifting, shifting endlessly above through the opening made by the parted window-curtains. What had happened? Nothing—and everything; nothing—and everything!

Gossip reigned in the village, carrying Dosia and Lawson up and down its gamut, even reaching the high crescendo of a secret marriage, with the inevitably hinted smirching reasons therefor. The Leverich ball promised to supply subject-matter for many a day to come. Mrs. Snow, from as early as eleven o’clock in the morning, sat with a white worsted shawl wrapped around her—the sign of elegant leisure—and rocked in the green-bowered and steaming little sitting-room between the geraniums and the begonias while awaiting visitors. She greeted each one who “ran in” with the invariable remark:

“I suppose you know all about the Leverichs’ ball last night. Well, what do you think of the goings-on there?” being intent mousingly on getting every last little cheesy crumb of detail, and peacefully unaware of deep, rich stores concealed in her own family. The incident of the stairway was common property, but Miss Bertha had told nothing of Dosia’s little heart-breaking confidence to her. Her mother was amazed at the very conservative disapproval expressed by this elder daughter, turning for confirmation of her own views to her callers.