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Updated: May 12, 2025
"Yes, yes, very much," answered Morris eagerly. "That is, if you think she will not mind. You see, it is private." Mr. Fregelius took no notice of the tense of which Morris made use, for the reason that it seemed natural to him that he should employ it.
They were staying to lunch with the Stop-gap's meek little wife. Indeed, this self-satisfied and somewhat acrimonious lady, Miss Layard, engaged Morris in conversation, and pointedly asked him to introduce her to Miss Fregelius. "We are to be neighbours, you know," she explained, "for we live at the Hall in the next parish, not more than a mile away."
Fregelius staring at each other while he murmured away about the delights of the world to come, and how happy we ought to be at the thought of getting there, made me quite uncomfortable." "Why? Why, dear?" asked Morris, vacantly. "Why?
"She is taking it hard and she is fond of him deuced fond of him, poor girl," thought the Colonel; but aloud he said, "My dear Miss Fregelius, I never believed the stories. As for the principal one, common sense rebels against it.
"This is rather awkward," he thought, as he braced himself to battle, "especially as I like that girl and don't want to hurt her feelings. Hullo! Miss Fregelius, are you taking the air? You should walk, or you will catch cold." "No, Colonel Monk, I was waiting for you." "Waiting for me? Me! This is indeed an honour, and one which age appreciates." She waved aside his two-edged badinage.
"What is her name?" asked someone idly, in a break of the general conversation, so that everybody paused to listen to his reply. "Stella Stella Fregelius; a very unusual girl."
Fregelius had given him no absolute encouragement; he had said that personally the marriage would be very pleasing to himself, but that it was a matter of which Stella must judge; and when asked whether he would speak to his daughter, he had emphatically declined. Still, Stephen Layard had taken this to be all a part of the paternal formula, and rejoiced, thinking the matter as good as settled.
"You must allow me to introduce myself, Miss Fregelius," he said with an old-fashioned and courtly bow, "and to explain that I have the honour to be my son's father." She bowed and answered: "Yes, I think I should have known that from the likeness." "Hum!" said the Colonel. "Even at my age I am not certain that I am altogether flattered.
In short, these conversations grew at length into a kind of seance or solemn rite; a joint offering to the dead of the best that they had to give, their tenderest thoughts and memories, made in solemn secrecy and with uplifted hearts and minds. Mr. Fregelius was an historian, and possessed some interesting records, upon which it was his habit to descant.
Yet he knew that to his son this name was holy. Therefore, being in some ways a wise man, he thought it well to keep his lips shut and to let the dead bury their dead. By all the rest Stella Fregelius was soon as much forgotten as though she had never walked the world or breathed its air.
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