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Phyllis was away for the day; Mary was knitting in the sitting-room. I watched her in silence for a moment, and then I said abruptly: "Mary, I think I should like to marry Phyllis." Mary Eastmann was not the type of woman to lose herself or betray astonishment. She pushed her spectacles sharply above her eyes, looked at me sternly, and said in a rasping voice.
One afternoon as I sat in my room at the tavern, looking idly out of the window and across the little river which rippled by, something seemed to strike me violently in the forehead. It may have been a telepathic suggestion, it may have been a return to consciousness; at all events it was an idea. I leaped from my chair, put on my hat, and proceeded rather feverishly to the Eastmann cottage.
Peleg Eastmann had been our village postmaster, a grave, shy man, who had received the federal office because the thrifty neighbors agreed, irrespective of political feeling, that it was much less expensive to give him the office than to support him and his two daughters, the prettiest girls in our school.
John Stanhope is in love!" And the mocking crow, lazily flapping his wings at a safe distance, croaked enviously: "Ha, ha! old Stanhope is in love. Ha, ha!" Yet the whole conspiracy of animated nature could not make old Stanhope in his present exaltation regretful of his age or ashamed of his passion. Mary Eastmann had accepted the situation without comment.
We dine at twelve in the country, you know." If I was somewhat ashamed to face Mary Eastmann, she received us with the same stolidity she had manifested when we first met, and at once insisted that I should remain for dinner. "Go into the parlor," she said abruptly. Phyllis plucked the sleeve of my coat.
After this suggestion had been received with suitable expressions of gratitude, we journeyed together to the village, where I was duly turned over to old Pettigrew. And then, as the day was by no means done, I strolled down the street and, most naturally and quite unthinkingly, found myself a few minutes later looking over the Eastmann gate at Phyllis on the porch.
And so it came about that at the close of day I found myself standing at the garden gate of the Eastmann cottage.
Much of my spare time and it is amazing how much spare time one has in a village was spent at the Eastmann cottage with my new daughter, and in the evening I talked to her of the world outside, quite, I fancy, as Othello may have spoken to Desdemona, but with a more conservative and a better impulse.
Thirty years ago I had stood at this little gate with one of the Eastmann girls, escorting her home from Stella Perkins's party. I had attempted to kiss her good-night, and she had boxed my ears, thus contributing a disagreeable finale to an otherwise pleasant evening. Time is a great healer and I cherished no resentment at this late day toward the repudiator of my caresses.
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