"I don't see that, my dear," said the mother.Hetta would not explain before her sister, so they all went to bed.
On the Thursday evening the drawing was finished.Not a word had been said about it, at any rate in his presence, and he had gone on working in silence."There," said he, late on the Thursday evening, "I don't know that it will be any better if I go on daubing for another hour.There, Miss Susan; there's another bridge.I hope that will neither burst with the frost, nor yet be destroyed by fire," and he gave it a light flip with his fingers and sent it skimming over the table.
Susan blushed and smiled, and took it up."Oh, it is beautiful,"she said."Isn't it beautifully done, mother?" and then all the three got up to look at it, and all confessed that it was excellently done.
"And I am sure we are very much obliged to you," said Susan after a pause, remembering that she had not yet thanked him.
"Oh, it's nothing," said he, not quite liking the word "we." On the following day he returned from his work to Saratoga about noon.
This he had never done before, and therefore no one expected that he would be seen in the house before the evening.On this occasion, however, he went straight thither, and as chance would have it, both the widow and her elder daughter were out.Susan was there alone in charge of the house.
He walked in and opened the parlour door.There she sat, with her feet on the fender, with her work unheeded on the table behind her, and the picture, Aaron's drawing, lying on her knees.She was gazing at it intently as he entered, thinking in her young heart that it possessed all the beauties which a picture could possess.
"Oh, Mr.Dunn," she said, getting up and holding the telltale sketch behind the skirt of her dress.
"Miss Susan, I have come here to tell your mother that I must start for New York this afternoon and be there for six weeks, or perhaps longer.""Mother is out," said she; "I'm so sorry.""Is she?" said Aaron.
"And Hetta too.Dear me.And you'll be wanting dinner.I'll go and see about it."Aaron began to swear that he could not possibly eat any dinner.He had dined once, and was going to dine again;--anything to keep her from going.
"But you must have something, Mr.Dunn," and she walked towards the door.
But he put his back to it."Miss Susan," said he, "I guess I've been here nearly two months.""Yes, sir, I believe you have," she replied, shaking in her shoes, and not knowing which way to look.
"And I hope we have been good friends."
"Yes, sir," said Susan, almost beside herself as to what she was saying.
"I'm going away now, and it seems to be such a time before I'll be back.""Will it, Sir?"
"Six weeks, Miss Susan!" and then he paused, looking into her eyes, to see what he could read there.She leant against the table, pulling to pieces a morsel of half-ravelled muslin which she held in her hand; but her eyes were turned to the ground, and he could hardly see them.
"Miss Susan," he continued, "I may as well speak out now as at another time." He too was looking towards the ground, and clearly did not know what to do with his hands."The truth is just this.
I--I love you dearly, with all my heart.I never saw any one I ever thought so beautiful, so nice, and so good;--and what's more, Inever shall.I'm not very good at this sort of thing, I know; but Icouldn't go away from Saratoga for six weeks and not tell you." And then he ceased.He did not ask for any love in return.His presumption had not got so far as that yet.He merely declared his passion, leaning against the door, and there he stood twiddling his thumbs.
Susan had not the slightest conception of the way in which she ought to receive such a declaration.She had never had a lover before;nor had she ever thought of Aaron absolutely as a lover, though something very like love for him had been crossing over her spirit.
Now, at this moment, she felt that he was the beau-ideal of manhood, though his boots were covered with the railway mud, and though his pantaloons were tucked up in rolls round his ankles.He was a fine, well-grown, open-faced fellow, whose eye was bold and yet tender, whose brow was full and broad, and all his bearing manly.Love him!
Of course she loved him.Why else had her heart melted with pleasure when her mother said that that second picture was to be accepted?
But what was she to say? Anything but the open truth; she well knew that.The open truth would not do at all.What would her mother say and Hetta if she were rashly to say that? Hetta, she knew, would be dead against such a lover, and of her mother's approbation she had hardly more hope.Why they should disapprove of Aaron as a lover she had never asked herself.There are many nice things that seem to be wrong only because they are so nice.Maybe that Susan regarded a lover as one of them."Oh, Mr.Dunn, you shouldn't."That in fact was all that she could say.
"Should not I?" said he."Well, perhaps not; but there's the truth, and no harm ever comes of that.Perhaps I'd better not ask you for an answer now, but I thought it better you should know it all.And remember this--I only care for one thing now in the world, and that is for your love." And then he paused, thinking possibly that in spite of what he had said he might perhaps get some sort of an answer, some inkling of the state of her heart's disposition towards him.
But Susan had at once resolved to take him at his word when he suggested that an immediate reply was not necessary.To say that she loved him was of course impossible, and to say that she did not was equally so.She determined therefore to close at once with the offer of silence.
When he ceased speaking there was a moment's pause, during which he strove hard to read what might be written on her down-turned face.
But he was not good at such reading."Well, I guess I'll go and get my things ready now," he said, and then turned round to open the door.
"Mother will be in before you are gone, I suppose," said Susan.
"I have only got twenty minutes," said he, looking at his watch.
