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She was laughing richly all through the words, and Lydia, though she was blushing, liked the sound of it. She felt quite equal to the scrutiny. She knew the days of driving had given her a color, and she was not unconscious of her new blue waist. Then, too, Eben's hand was again on hers under the friendly cloth. Aunt Phebe looked, took off her glasses, pretended to wipe them, and looked again.
She would have been to Hetty only the suggestion of a possible ideal wife, who, had she lived, and had she entered into Dr. Eben's life, might have made him happier than Hetty could. But Rachel grew better and stronger every day. Early in the spring she began to walk, creeping about, at first, like a little child just learning to walk, by pushing a chair before her.
All Doctor Eben's friends were hilarious; and the greater part of Hetty's were gloomy. They said, he was marrying her for her money; that Hetty was too old, and too independent in all her ways, to be married at all; that they would be sure to fall out quickly; and a hundred other things equally meddlesome and silly.
"Folks get up here when they're a mind to, an' when it comes to Eben's wife well, you can't say no more'n that in this house." Lydia took her place rather shyly, but when Eben had found her hand under the tablecloth and given it a welcoming squeeze, she felt more than half at home.
Instantly the arms fell; and the doctor stood opposite her in the door-way, his head bent forward and his eyes fixed on her face. Hetty cast her eyes down. Words did not come. It would have been easier to have said them while she was held close to Doctor Eben's side.
Rachel's lips parted, but she did not speak; her face flushed scarlet, then turned white; and, without a moment's warning or possibility of staying the tears, she buried her face in her hands, and wept convulsively. In the same instant, a magnetic sense of all that this grief meant thrilled through Doctor Eben's every nerve. No such thought had ever crossed his mind before.
Eben lives on a southern spur, next to Amos Cuthbert, where you can look off for forty miles across the billowy mountains of the west. From no spot in Coniston town is the sunset so fine on distant Farewell Mountain, and Eben's sheep feed on pastures where only mountain-bred sheep can cling and thrive.
One day he rode over to Springton, to bid Rachel Barlow good-by. Rachel was now twenty-eight years old, and a very beautiful woman. Many men had sought to marry her, but Dr. Eben's prediction had been realized. Rachel would not marry. Her health was perfectly established, and she had been for years at the head of the Springton Academy.
All Doctor Eben's friends were hilarious; and the greater part of Hetty's were gloomy. They said, he was marrying her for her money; that Hetty was too old, and too independent in all her ways, to be married at all; that they would be sure to fall out quickly; and a hundred other things equally meddlesome and silly.
Could you" Hetty hesitated, and fairly stammered in her embarrassment. "Couldn't you come over here to-night and sleep, so as to be here when she first wakes up? You might do something to help her." Before Hetty had finished her sentence, her face was crimson. Dr. Eben's was full of a humorous amusement. Already, in twenty-four hours, had it come to this, that Hetty was urging that popinjay Dr.
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