"It is not that, Alice," I answered peevishly; "you know better."

"You are peculiar, then; it may be he likes you for being so. He is odd, you know; but his oddity never troubles me." And she resumed her sewing with a placid face.

"Veronica is odd, also," was my thought; "but oddity there runs in a different direction." Her image appeared to me, pale, delicate, unyielding. I seemed to wash like a weed at her base.

"You should see my sister, Alice."

"Charles spoke of her; he says she plays beautifully. If you feel strong next week, we will go to Boston, and make our winter purchases.

By the way, I hope you are not nervous. To go back to Charles, I have noticed how little you say to him. You know he never talks. The influence you speak of--it does not make you dislike him?"

"No; I meant to say--my choice of words must be poor--that it was possible I might be thinking too much of him; he is your husband, you know, though I do not think he is particularly interesting, or pleasing."

She laughed, as if highly amused, and said: "Well, about our dresses.

You need a ball dress, so do I; for we shall have b.a.l.l.s this winter, and if the children are well, we will go. I think, too, that you had better get a gray cloth pelisse, with a fur tr.i.m.m.i.n.g. We dress so much at church."

"Perhaps," I said. "And how will a gray hat with feathers look? I must first write father, and ask for more money."

"Of course; but he allows you all you want."

"He is not so very rich; we do not live as handsomely as you do."

It was tea-time when we had finished our confab, and Alice sent me to bed soon after. I was comfortably drowsy when I heard Charles driving into the stable. "There he is," I thought, with a light heart, for I felt better since I had spoken to Alice of him. Her matter-of-fact air had blown away the cobwebs that had gathered across my fancy.

I saw him at the breakfast-table the next morning. He was noting something in his memorandum book, which excused him from offering me his hand; but he spoke kindly, said he was glad to see me, hoped I was well, and could find a breakfast that I liked.

"For some reason or other, I do not eat so much as I did in Surrey."

Alice laughed, and I blushed.

"What do you think, Charles?" she said, "Ca.s.sandra seems worried by the influence, as she calls it, you have upon each other."

"Does she?"

He raised his strange, intense eyes to mine; a blinding, intelligent light flowed from them which I could not defy, nor resist, a light which filled my veins with a torrent of fire.

"You think Ca.s.sandra is not like you," he continued with a curious intonation.

"I told her that your oddities never troubled me."

"That is right."

"To-day," I muttered, "Alice, I shall go back to school."

"You must ride," she answered.

"Jesse will drive you up," said Charles, rising. Alice called him back, to tell him her plan of the Boston visit.

"Certainly; go by all means," he said, and went on his way.

I made my application to father, telling him I had nothing to wear. He answered with haste, begging me to clothe myself at once.

CHAPTER XVII.

It was November when we returned from Boston. One morning when the frost sparkled on the dead leaves, which still dropped on the walks, Helen Perkins and I were taking a stroll down Silver Street, behind the Academy, when we saw Dr. White coming down the street in his sulky, rocking from side to side like a cradle. He stopped when he came up to us.

"Do ye sit up late of evenings, Miss Morgeson?"

"No, Doctor; only once a week or so."

"You are a case." And he meditatively pulled his s.h.a.ggy whiskers with a loose buckskin glove. "There's a ripple coming under your eyes already; what did I tell you? Let me see, did you say you were like father or mother?"

"I look like my father. By the way, Doctor, I am studying my temperament. You will make an infidel of me by your inquiries."

Helen laughed, and staring at him, called him a bear, and told him he ought to live in a hospital, where he would have plenty of sick women to tease.

"I should find few like you there."

He chirruped to his horse, but checked it again, put out his head and called, "Keep your feet warm, wont you? And read Shakespeare."

Helen said that Dr. White had been crossed in love, and long after had married a deformed woman--for science's sake, perhaps. His talent was well known out of Rosville; but he was unambitious and eccentric.

"He is interested in you, Ca.s.s, that I see. Are you quite well? What about the change you spoke of?"

"Dr. White has theories; he has attached one to me. Nature has adjusted us nicely, he thinks, with fine strings; if we laugh too much, or cry too long, a knot slips somewhere, which 'all the king's men' can't take up again. Perhaps he judges women by his deformed wife. Men do judge that way, I suppose, and then pride themselves on their experience, commencing their speeches about us, with 'you women.' I'll answer your question, though,--there's a blight creeping over me, or a mildew."

"Is there a worm i' the bud?"

"There may be one at the root; my top is green and flourishing, isn't it?"

"You expect to be in a state of beat.i.tude always. What is a mote of dust in another's eye, in yours is a cataract. You are mad at your blindness, and fight the air because you can't see."

"I feel that I see very little, especially when I understand the clearness of your vision. Your good sense is monstrous."

"It will come right somehow, with you; when twenty years are wasted, maybe," she answered sadly. "There's the first bell! I haven't a word yet of my rhetoric lesson," opening her book and chanting, "'Man, thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear.' Are you going to Professor Simpson's cla.s.s?" shutting it again. "I know the new dance"; and she began to execute it on the walk. The door of a house opposite us opened, and a tall youth came out, hat in hand. Without evincing surprise, he advanced toward Helen, gravely dancing the same step; they finished the figure with unmoved countenances. "Come now," I said, taking her arm. He then made a series of bows to us, retreating to the house, with his face toward us, till he reached the door and closed it. He was tall and stout, with red hair, and piercing black eyes, and looked about twenty-three. "Who can that be, Helen?"

"A stranger; probably some young man come to Dr. Price, or a law student. He is new here, at all events. His is not an obscure face; if it had been seen, we should have known it."

"We shall meet him, then."

And we did, the very next day, which was Wednesday, in the hall, where we went to hear the boys declaim. I saw him, sitting by himself in a chair, instead of being with the cla.s.ses. He was in a brown study, unaware that he was observed; both hands were in his pockets, and his legs were stretched out till his pantaloons had receded up his boots, whose soles he knocked together, oblivious of the noise they made. In spite of his red hair, I thought him handsome, with his Roman nose and firm, clefted chin. Helen and I were opposite him at the lower part of the hall, but he did not see us, till the first boy mounted the platform, and began to spout one of Cicero's orations; then he looked up, and a smile spread over his face. He withdrew his hands from his pockets, updrew his legs, and surveyed the long row of girls opposite, beginning at the head of the hall. As his eyes reached us, a flash of recognition shot across; he raised his hand as if to salute us, and I noticed that it was remarkably handsome, small and white, and ornamented with an old-fashioned ring. It was our habit, after the exercises were over, to gather round Dr. Price, to exchange a few words with him. And this occasion was no exception, for Dr. Price, with his double spectacles, and his silk handkerchief in his hand, was answering our questions, when feeling a touch, he stopped, turned hastily, and saw the stranger.

"Will you be so good as to introduce me to the two young ladies near you? We have met before, but I do not know their names."