The Girl at Cobhurst Part 18

Ralph arose, and took her hand, but she gave him no opportunity to say anything.

"Your sister and I got up this little bit of deception for you, Mr.

Haverley," she continued, "and we intended to carry it on a good deal further, but that gentleman has spoiled it all, and I want you to know that I stopped here to see your sister, and finding she had not a soul to help her, I would not leave her in such a plight, and we had a royal good time, getting the supper, and were going to do ever so many more things--I should like to know, doctor, how you knew me. I am sure I did not look a bit like myself."

"You did not look like yourself, but you walked like yourself," replied Dr. Tolbridge. "I watched you when you first tried to toddle alone, and I have seen you nearly every day since, and I know your way of stepping about as well as I know anything. But I must really apologize for having spoiled the fun. I discovered you, Dora, before we had half finished supper, but I thought the trick was being played on me alone. I had no idea that Mr. Haverley thought you were the new cook."

"I certainly did think so," cried Ralph, "and what is more, I intended to discharge you to-morrow morning."

There was a lively time for a few minutes, after which Dora explained what had been said about her mind and a kitten.

"He was just twitting me with having once changed my mind--every one does that," she said; "and then I gave him a kitten. That is all. And now, before I change my dress, I will go and get some wood for the kitchen fire. I think you said, Mr. Haverley, that the woodhouse was not far away."

"Wood!" cried Ralph; "don't you think of it!"

Miriam burst into a laugh.

"Oh, you ought to have heard the lord of the manor declare that he would not carry fuel for the cook," she cried.

Ralph joined in the laugh that rose against him, but insisted that Dora should not change her dress.

"You could not wear anything more becoming," he said, "and you do not know how much I want to treat the new cook as one of the family."

"I will wear whatever the lord of the manor chooses," said Dora, demurely, and was about to make reference to his concluding remark, but checked herself.

When the two girls joined the gentlemen on the porch, which they did with much promptness, having delegated the greater part of their household duties to Mike, who could take a hand at almost any kind of work, Dr.

Tolbridge announced that he must proceed to visit his patient.

"Are you coming back this way, doctor?" asked Dora. "Because if you are, would it be too much trouble for you to look for our buggy on the side of the road, and to bring back the cus.h.i.+ons and the whip with you? Herbert may think that in this part of the country the people are so honest that they would not steal anything out of a deserted buggy, but I do not believe it is safe to put too much trust in people."

"A fine, practicable mind," said the doctor; "cuts clean and sharp. I will bring the cus.h.i.+ons and the whip, if they have not been stolen before I reach them. And now I will go to the barn and get my horse. We need not disturb the industrious Mike."

"If you are going to the barn, doctor," cried Miriam, seizing her hat, "I will go with you and put the mosquito net over my calf, which I entirely forgot to do. Perhaps, if it is light enough, you will look at its eye."

The doctor laughed, and the two went off together, leaving Dora and Ralph on the piazza.

Dora could not help thinking of herself as a very lucky girl. When she had started that afternoon to make a little visit at Cobhurst, she had had no imaginable reason to suppose that in the course of a very few hours she would be sitting alone with Mr. Haverley in the early moonlight, without even his sister with them. She had expected to see Ralph and to have a chat with him, but she had counted on Miriam's presence as a matter of course; so this tete-a-tete in the quiet beauty of the night was as delightful as it was unantic.i.p.ated. More than that, it was an opportunity that ought not to be disregarded.

The new mind of Miss Dora Bannister was clear and quick in its perceptions, and prompt and independent in action. It not only showed what she wanted, but indicated pretty clearly how she might get it. Since she had been making use of this fresh intellect, she had been impressed very strongly by the belief that in the matter of matrimonial alliance, a girl should not neglect her interest by depending too much upon the option of other people. Her own right of option she looked upon as a sacred right, and one that it was her duty to herself to exercise, and that promptly. She had just come from the seaside, where she had met some earnest young men, one or two of whom she expected to see shortly at Thorbury. Also Mr. Ames, their young rector, was a very persevering person, and a great friend of her brother.

Of course it behooved her to act with tact, but for all that she must be prompt. It was easy to see that Ralph Haverley could not be expected to go very soon into the society of Thorbury, to visit ladies there, and as she wanted him to learn to know her as rapidly as possible, she resolved to give him every opportunity.

Miriam was gone a long time, because when she reached the barn, the calf was not to be found where she had left it, and she had been obliged to go for Mike and a lantern. After anxious search the little fellow had been found reclining under an apple tree, having gained sufficient strength from the ministrations of its fair attendants to go through the open stable door and to find out what sort of a world it had been born into.

It required time to get the truant back, secure it in its stall, and make all the arrangements for its comfort which Miriam thought necessary.

Therefore, before she returned to the piazza, Miss Bannister and Ralph had had a long conversation, in which the latter had learned a great deal about the disposition and tastes of his fair companion, and had been much interested in what he learned.

CHAPTER XIV

GOOD-NIGHT

When the three young people had been sitting for half an hour on the wide piazza of Cobhurst, enjoying the moonlight effects and waiting for the return of Dr. Tolbridge, Miriam, who was reclining in a steamer chair, ceased making remarks, but very soon after she became silent she was heard again, not speaking, however, but breathing audibly and with great regularity. Ralph and Dora turned toward her and smiled.

"Poor little thing," said the latter in a low voice; "she must be tired out."

"Yes," said Ralph, also speaking in an undertone, "she was up very early this morning, and has been at some sort of work ever since. I do not intend that this shall happen again. You must excuse her, Miss Bannister,--she is a girl yet, you know."

"And a sweet one, too," said Dora, "with a perfect right to go to sleep if she chooses. I should be ashamed of myself if I felt in the least degree offended. Do not let us disturb her until the doctor comes; the nap will do her good."

"Suppose, then," said Ralph, "that we take a little turn in the moonlight. Then we need not trouble ourselves to lower our voices."

"That will be very well," said Dora, "but I am afraid she may take cold, although the night air is so soft. I think I saw a lap robe on a table in the hall; I will spread that over her."

Ralph whispered that he would get the robe, but motioning him back, and having tiptoed into the hall and back again, Dora laid the light covering over the sleeping girl so gently that the regular breathing was not in the least interrupted. Then they both went quietly down the steps, and out upon the lawn.

"She is such a dear girl," said Dora, as they slowly moved away, "and although we only met to-day, I am really growing very fond of her, and I like her the better because there is still so much of the child left in her. Do not you like her the better for that, Mr. Haverley?"

Ralph did agree most heartily, and it made him happy to agree on any subject with a girl who was even more beautiful by moonlight than by day; who was so kind, and tended to his sister, and whose generous disposition could overlook little breaches of etiquette when there was reason to do so.

As they walked backward and forward, not very far away from the piazza, and sometimes stopping to admire bits of the silver-tinted landscape, Dora, with most interesting deftness, gave Ralph further opportunity of knowing her. With his sister as a suggesting subject, she talked about herself; she told him how she, too, had lost her parents early in life, and had been obliged to be a very independent girl, for her stepmother, although just as good as she could be, was not a person on whom she could rely very much. As for her brother, the dearest man on earth, she had always felt that she was more capable of taking care of him, at least in all matters in home life, than he of her.

"But I have been very happy," she went on to say, "for I am so fond of country life, and everything that belongs to it, that the more I have to do with it, the better I like it, and I really begrudge the time that I spend in the city. You do not know with what pleasure I look forward to helping Miriam get breakfast to-morrow morning. I consider it a positive lark. By the way, Mr. Haverley, do you like rolled omelets?"

Ralph declared that he liked everything that was good, and had no doubt that rolled omelets were delicious.

"Then I shall make some," said Dora, "for I know how to do it. And I think you said, Mr. Haverley, that the coffee to-night was too strong."

"A little so, perhaps," said Ralph, "but it was excellent."

"Oh, it shall be better in the morning. I am sure it will be well for one of us to do one thing, and the other another. I will make the coffee."

"You are wonderfully kind to do anything at all," said Ralph, and as he spoke he heard the clock in the house strike ten. It was agreeable in the highest degree to walk in the moonlight with this charming girl, but he felt that it was getting late; it was long past Miriam's bedtime, and he wondered why the doctor did not come.

Dora perceived the perturbations of his mind; she knew that he thought it was time for the little party to break up, but did not like to suggest it. She knew that the natural and proper thing for her to do was to wake up Miriam, and that the two should bid Ralph good-night, and leave him to sit up and wait for the doctor as long as he felt himself called upon to do so, but she was perfectly contented with the present circ.u.mstances, and did not wish to change them just yet. It was a pleasure to her to walk by this tall, broad-shouldered young fellow, who was so handsome and so strong, and in so many ways the sort of man she liked, and to let him know, not so much by her words, as by the incited action of his own intelligence, that she was fond of the things he was fond of, and that she loved the life he led.

As they still walked and talked, the thought came to Dora, and it was a very pleasing one, that she might act another part with this young gentleman; she had played the cook, now for a while she could play the mistress, and she knew she could do it so gently and so wisely that he would like it without perceiving it. She turned away her face for a moment; she felt that her pleasure in acting the part of mistress of Cobhurst, even for a little time, was flus.h.i.+ng it.

"Suppose," she said, "we walk down to the road, and if we see or hear the doctor coming, we can wait there and save him the trouble of driving in."

They went out of the Cobhurst gateway, but along the moonlighted highway they saw no approaching spot, nor could they hear the sounds of wheels.

"I really think, Mr. Haverley," said Dora, turning toward the house, "that I ought to go and arouse Miriam, and then we will retire. It is a positive shame to keep her out of her bed any longer."

This suggestion much relieved Ralph, and they walked rapidly to the porch, but when they reached it they found an empty steamer chair and no Miriam anywhere. They looked at each other in much surprise, and entering the house they looked in several of the rooms on the lower floor. Ralph was about to call out for his sister, but Dora quickly touched him on the arm.

"Hush," she said, smiling, "do not call her. Do you see that lap robe on the table? I will tell you exactly what has happened; while we were down at the road she awoke, at least enough to know that she ought to go to bed, and I really believe that she was not sufficiently awake to remember that I am here, and that she simply got up, brought the robe in with her, and went to her room. Isn't it funny?"