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Then out came her trouble before she was aware; and she told him how she had again got into the toils; what Boldwood had asked her, and how he was expecting her assent.
There came a time when neither spoke the same language as the other, or encompassed the same hopes, or was fortified by the same desires. But, at least, it is some consolation to the survivor, that neither, to the very last hour, ceased to respect the other, or to regard him with a sad indulgence.
In half an hour the boy was on the canal-packet speeding homeward at the highest pace of the three-horse team, and the Boy's Town was out of sight. He could not sleep for excitement that night, and he came and spent the time talking on quite equal terms with the steersman, one of the canalers whom he had admired afar in earlier and simpler days.
So she came, and the sight of him standing there in his early manhood, his soft brown hair clustering about his brow, and his calm, pale face wearing an expression almost angelic, was more than she could bear, and leaning forward she kept her countenance concealed from view until the ceremony was ended, and Walter's clear, musical voice announced the closing hymn.
"Mother is goin' to try to do better, and have more patience, and not let you hear such talk any more," said Fanny, kissing Ellen passionately, and rising with Andrew's arm around her. "I'm going to try, too, Ellen," said Eva. The stout woman came padding softly and heavily into the room, and there was a bright-blue silken gleam in her hand.
And, fortunately, he understood, which might have been expected of him, considering his line of work. "It's a bad break," he affirmed, as he looked at it, "Sometimes the heat of the sun will warp a rail, and pull out the very spikes by the roots, ladies. That's what happened here. Then a train 'twas the local from Dunkirk came along and split the rail. 'Tis a wonder Jimmie Flannigan didn't see it.
Finally the solution came, just as Phyllis was pulling off her raincoat in the dark little cloak-room. She nearly dropped the coat. "Eva Atkinson!" she said. Eva Atkinson!... If it had been anybody else but Eva! You see, back in long-ago, in the little leisurely windblown New England town where Phyllis Braithwaite had lived till she was almost eighteen, there had been a Principal Grocer.
But even here she must be cautious, for the governor's wife often came out to give her orders to the workwomen, and to see and criticise the produce of the hundred looms which were always in motion, early and late. If she should be seen, one of the weavers might only too probably betray the fact of her nocturnal visit.
I have to be back at work the morning after Christmas." The khaki boy came up again and shared the candy. He told amusing stories of campaigning in South Africa. The minister came too, and listened, and even the sealskin lady turned her head over her shoulder. By and by the children fell asleep, one on Aunt Cyrilla's lap and one on Lucy Rose's, and two on the seat.
With something of that forced boldness with which years before I had braved the dark mountains, I made the gate ring a proper notice of my approach and groped my way about the door until I found the bell. The answer came from over my head.
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