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<pre>
The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Courtship of Susan Bell, by Anthony
Trollope, Illustrated by Marcus Stone
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
Title: The Courtship of Susan Bell
Author: Anthony Trollope
Release Date: January 16, 2015 [eBook #3700]
[This file was first posted on July 25, 2001]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COURTSHIP OF SUSAN BELL***
</pre>
<p>Transcribed from the 1864 Chapman & Hall, “Tales of
All Countries,” edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
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<h1>THE COURTSHIP OF SUSAN BELL.</h1>
<p><span class="smcap">John Munroe Bell</span> had been a lawyer
in Albany, State of New York, and as such had thriven well.
He had thriven well as long as thrift and thriving on this earth
had been allowed to him. But the Almighty had seen fit to
shorten his span.</p>
<p>Early in life he had married a timid, anxious, pretty, good
little wife, whose whole heart and mind had been given up to do
his bidding and deserve his love. She had not only deserved
it but had possessed it, and as long as John Munroe Bell had
lived, Henrietta Bell—Hetta as he called her—had been
a woman rich in blessings. After twelve years of such
blessings he had left her, and had left with her two daughters, a
second Hetta, and the heroine of our little story, Susan
Bell.</p>
<p>A lawyer in Albany may thrive passing well for eight or ten
years, and yet not leave behind him any very large sum of money
if he dies at the end of that time. Some small modicum,
some few thousand dollars, John Bell had amassed, so that his
widow and daughters were not absolutely driven to look for work
or bread.</p>
<p>In those happy days when cash had begun to flow in plenteously
to the young father of the family, he had taken it into his head
to build for himself, or rather for his young female brood, a
small neat house in the outskirts of Saratoga Springs. In
doing so he was instigated as much by the excellence of the
investment for his pocket as by the salubrity of the place for
his girls. He furnished the house well, and then during
some summer weeks his wife lived there, and sometimes he let
it.</p>
<p>How the widow grieved when the lord of her heart and master of
her mind was laid in the grave, I need not tell. She had
already counted ten years of widowhood, and her children had
grown to be young women beside her at the time of which I am now
about to speak. Since that sad day on which they had left
Albany they had lived together at the cottage at the
Springs. In winter their life had been lonely enough; but
as soon as the hot weather began to drive the fainting citizens
out from New York, they had always received two or three
boarders—old ladies generally, and occasionally an old
gentleman—persons of very steady habits, with whose pockets
the widow’s moderate demands agreed better than the hotel
charges. And so the Bells lived for ten years.</p>
<p>That Saratoga is a gay place in July, August, and September,
the world knows well enough. To girls who go there with
trunks full of muslin and crinoline, for whom a carriage and pair
of horses is always waiting immediately after dinner, whose
fathers’ pockets are bursting with dollars, it is a very
gay place. Dancing and flirtations come as a matter of
course, and matrimony follows after with only too great
rapidity. But the place was not very gay for Hetta or Susan
Bell.</p>
<p>In the first place the widow was a timid woman, and among
other fears feared greatly that she should be thought guilty of
setting traps for husbands. Poor mothers! how often are
they charged with this sin when their honest desires go no
further than that their bairns may be “respectit like the
lave.” And then she feared flirtations; flirtations
that should be that and nothing more, flirtations that are so
destructive of the heart’s sweetest essence. She
feared love also, though she longed for that as well as feared
it;—for her girls, I mean; all such feelings for herself
were long laid under ground;—and then, like a timid
creature as she was, she had other indefinite fears, and among
them a great fear that those girls of hers would be left
husbandless,—a phase of life which after her twelve years
of bliss she regarded as anything but desirable. But the
upshot was,—the upshot of so many fears and such small
means,—that Hetta and Susan Bell had but a dull life of
it.</p>
<p>Were it not that I am somewhat closely restricted in the
number of my pages, I would describe at full the merits and
beauties of Hetta and Susan Bell. As it is I can but say a
few words. At our period of their lives Hetta was nearly
one-and-twenty, and Susan was just nineteen. Hetta was a
short, plump, demure young woman, with the softest smoothed hair,
and the brownest brightest eyes. She was very useful in the
house, good at corn cakes, and thought much, particularly in
these latter months, of her religious duties. Her sister in
the privacy of their own little room would sometimes twit her
with the admiring patience with which she would listen to the
lengthened eloquence of Mr. Phineas Beckard, the Baptist
minister. Now Mr. Phineas Beckard was a bachelor.</p>
<p>Susan was not so good a girl in the kitchen or about the house
as was her sister; but she was bright in the parlour, and if that
motherly heart could have been made to give out its inmost
secret—which however, it could not have been made to give
out in any way painful to dear Hetta—perhaps it might have
been found that Susan was loved with the closest love. She
was taller than her sister, and lighter; her eyes were blue as
were her mother’s; her hair was brighter than
Hetta’s, but not always so singularly neat. She had a
dimple on her chin, whereas Hetta had none; dimples on her cheeks
too, when she smiled; and, oh, such a mouth! There; my
allowance of pages permits no more.</p>
<p>One piercing cold winter’s day there came knocking at
the widow’s door—a young man. Winter days, when
the ice of January is refrozen by the wind of February, are very
cold at Saratoga Springs. In these days there was not often
much to disturb the serenity of Mrs. Bell’s house; but on
the day in question there came knocking at the door—a young
man.</p>
<p>Mrs. Bell kept an old domestic, who had lived with them in
those happy Albany days. Her name was Kate O’Brien,
but though picturesque in name she was hardly so in person.
She was a thick-set, noisy, good-natured old Irishwoman, who had
joined her lot to that of Mrs. Bell when the latter first began
housekeeping, and knowing when she was well off; had remained in
the same place from that day forth. She had known Hetta as
a baby, and, so to say, had seen Susan’s birth.</p>
<p>“And what might you be wanting, sir?” said Kate
O’Brien, apparently not quite pleased as she opened the
door and let in all the cold air.</p>
<p>“I wish to see Mrs. Bell. Is not this Mrs.
Bell’s house?” said the young man, shaking the snow
from out of the breast of his coat.</p>
<p>He did see Mrs. Bell, and we will now tell who he was, and why
he had come, and how it came to pass that his carpet-bag was
brought down to the widow’s house and one of the front
bedrooms was prepared for him, and that he drank tea that night
in the widow’s parlour.</p>
<p>His name was Aaron Dunn, and by profession he was an
engineer. What peculiar misfortune in those days of frost
and snow had befallen the line of rails which runs from
Schenectady to Lake Champlain, I never quite understood.
Banks and bridges had in some way come to grief, and on Aaron
Dunn’s shoulders was thrown the burden of seeing that they
were duly repaired. Saratoga Springs was the centre of
these mishaps, and therefore at Saratoga Springs it was necessary
that he should take up his temporary abode.</p>
<p>Now there was at that time in New York city a Mr. Bell, great
in railway matters—an uncle of the once thriving but now
departed Albany lawyer. He was a rich man, but he liked his
riches himself; or at any rate had not found himself called upon
to share them with the widow and daughters of his nephew.
But when it chanced to come to pass that he had a hand in
despatching Aaron Dunn to Saratoga, he took the young man aside
and recommended him to lodge with the widow.
“There,” said he, “show her my
card.” So much the rich uncle thought he might
vouchsafe to do for the nephew’s widow.</p>
<p>Mrs. Bell and both her daughters were in the parlour when
Aaron Dunn was shown in, snow and all. He told his story in
a rough, shaky voice, for his teeth chattered; and he gave the
card, almost wishing that he had gone to the empty big hotel, for
the widow’s welcome was not at first quite warm.</p>
<p>The widow listened to him as he gave his message, and then she
took the card and looked at it. Hetta, who was sitting on
the side of the fireplace facing the door, went on demurely with
her work. Susan gave one glance round—her back was to
the stranger—and then another; and then she moved her chair
a little nearer to the wall, so as to give the young man room to
come to the fire, if he would. He did not come, but his
eyes glanced upon Susan Bell; and he thought that the old man in
New York was right, and that the big hotel would be cold and
dull. It was a pretty face to look on that cold evening as
she turned it up from the stocking she was mending.</p>
<p>“Perhaps you don’t wish to take winter boarders,
ma’am?” said Aaron Dunn.</p>
<p>“We never have done so yet, sir,” said Mrs. Bell
timidly. Could she let this young wolf in among her
lamb-fold? He might be a wolf;—who could tell?</p>
<p>“Mr. Bell seemed to think it would suit,” said
Aaron.</p>
<p>Had he acquiesced in her timidity and not pressed the point,
it would have been all up with him. But the widow did not
like to go against the big uncle; and so she said, “Perhaps
it may, sir.”</p>
<p>“I guess it will, finely,” said Aaron. And
then the widow seeing that the matter was so far settled, put
down her work and came round into the passage. Hetta
followed her, for there would be housework to do. Aaron
gave himself another shake, settled the weekly number of
dollars—with very little difficulty on his part, for he had
caught another glance at Susan’s face; and then went after
his bag. ’Twas thus that Aaron Dunn obtained an
entrance into Mrs. Bell’s house. “But what if
he be a wolf?” she said to herself over and over again that
night, though not exactly in those words. Ay, but there is
another side to that question. What if he be a stalwart
man, honest-minded, with clever eye, cunning hand, ready brain,
broad back, and warm heart; in want of a wife mayhap; a man that
can earn his own bread and another’s;—half a dozen
others’ when the half dozen come? Would not that be a
good sort of lodger? Such a question as that too did flit,
just flit, across the widow’s sleepless mind. But
then she thought so much more of the wolf! Wolves, she had
taught herself to think, were more common than stalwart,
honest-minded, wife-desirous men.</p>
<p>“I wonder mother consented to take him,” said
Hetta, when they were in the little room together.</p>
<p>“And why shouldn’t she?” said Susan.
“It will be a help.”</p>
<p>“Yes, it will be a little help,” said Hetta.
“But we have done very well hitherto without winter
lodgers.”</p>
<p>“But uncle Bell said she was to.”</p>
<p>“What is uncle Bell to us?” said Hetta, who had a
spirit of her own. And she began to surmise within herself
whether Aaron Dunn would join the Baptist congregation, and
whether Phineas Beckard would approve of this new move.</p>
<p>“He is a very well-behaved young man at any rate,”
said Susan, “and he draws beautifully. Did you see
those things he was doing?”</p>
<p>“He draws very well, I dare say,” said Hetta, who
regarded this as but a poor warranty for good behaviour.
Hetta also had some fear of wolves—not for herself perhaps;
but for her sister.</p>
<p>Aaron Dunn’s work—the commencement of his
work—lay at some distance from the Springs, and he left
every morning with a lot of workmen by an early
train—almost before daylight. And every morning, cold
and wintry as the mornings were, the widow got him his breakfast
with her own hands. She took his dollars and would not
leave him altogether to the awkward mercies of Kate
O’Brien; nor would she trust her girls to attend upon the
young man. Hetta she might have trusted; but then Susan
would have asked why she was spared her share of such
hardship.</p>
<p>In the evening, leaving his work when it was dark, Aaron
always returned, and then the evening was passed together.
But they were passed with the most demure propriety. These
women would make the tea, cut the bread and butter, and then sew;
while Aaron Dunn, when the cups were removed, would always go to
his plans and drawings.</p>
<p>On Sundays they were more together; but even on this day there
was cause of separation, for Aaron went to the Episcopalian
church, rather to the disgust of Hetta. In the afternoon,
however, they were together; and then Phineas Beckard came in to
tea on Sundays, and he and Aaron got to talking on religion; and
though they disagreed pretty much, and would not give an inch
either one or the other, nevertheless the minister told the
widow, and Hetta too probably, that the lad had good stuff in
him, though he was so stiff-necked.</p>
<p>“But he should be more modest in talking on such matters
with a minister,” said Hetta.</p>
<p>The Rev. Phineas acknowledged that perhaps he should; but he
was honest enough to repeat that the lad had stuff in him.
“Perhaps after all he is not a wolf,” said the widow
to herself.</p>
<p>Things went on in this way for above a month. Aaron had
declared to himself over and over again that that face was sweet
to look upon, and had unconsciously promised to himself certain
delights in talking and perhaps walking with the owner of
it. But the walkings had not been achieved—nor even
the talkings as yet. The truth was that Dunn was bashful
with young women, though he could be so stiff-necked with the
minister.</p>
<p>And then he felt angry with himself, inasmuch as he had
advanced no further; and as he lay in his bed—which perhaps
those pretty hands had helped to make—he resolved that he
would be a thought bolder in his bearing. He had no idea of
making love to Susan Bell; of course not. But why should he
not amuse himself by talking to a pretty girl when she sat so
near him, evening after evening?</p>
<p>“What a very quiet young man he is,” said Susan to
her sister.</p>
<p>“He has his bread to earn, and sticks to his
work,” said Hetta. “No doubt he has his
amusement when he is in the city,” added the elder sister,
not wishing to leave too strong an impression of the young
man’s virtue.</p>
<p>They had all now their settled places in the parlour.
Hetta sat on one side of the fire, close to the table, having
that side to herself. There she sat always busy. She
must have made every dress and bit of linen worn in the house,
and hemmed every sheet and towel, so busy was she always.
Sometimes, once in a week or so, Phineas Beckard would come in,
and then place was made for him between Hetta’s usual seat
and the table. For when there he would read out loud.
On the other side, close also to the table, sat the widow, busy,
but not savagely busy as her elder daughter. Between Mrs.
Bell and the wall, with her feet ever on the fender, Susan used
to sit; not absolutely idle, but doing work of some slender
pretty sort, and talking ever and anon to her mother.
Opposite to them all, at the other side of the table, far away
from the fire, would Aaron Dunn place himself with his plans and
drawings before him.</p>
<p>“Are you a judge of bridges, ma’am?” said
Aaron, the evening after he had made his resolution.
’Twas thus he began his courtship.</p>
<p>“Of bridges?” said Mrs. Bell—“oh dear
no, sir.” But she put out her hand to take the little
drawing which Aaron handed to her.</p>
<p>“Because that’s one I’ve planned for our bit
of a new branch from Moreau up to Lake George. I guess Miss
Susan knows something about bridges.”</p>
<p>“I guess I don’t,” said
Susan—“only that they oughtn’t to tumble down
when the frost comes.”</p>
<p>“Ha, ha, ha; no more they ought. I’ll tell
McEvoy that.” McEvoy had been a former engineer on
the line. “Well, that won’t burst with any
frost, I guess.”</p>
<p>“Oh my! how pretty!” said the widow, and then
Susan of course jumped up to look over her mother’s
shoulder.</p>
<p>The artful dodger! he had drawn and coloured a beautiful
little sketch of a bridge; not an engineer’s plan with
sections and measurements, vexatious to a woman’s eye, but
a graceful little bridge with a string of cars running under
it. You could almost hear the bell going.</p>
<p>“Well; that is a pretty bridge,” said Susan.
“Isn’t it, Hetta?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know anything about bridges,” said
Hetta, to whose clever eyes the dodge was quite apparent.
But in spite of her cleverness Mrs. Bell and Susan had soon moved
their chairs round to the table, and were looking through the
contents of Aaron’s portfolio. “But yet he may
be a wolf,” thought the poor widow, just as she was
kneeling down to say her prayers.</p>
<p>That evening certainly made a commencement. Though Hetta
went on pertinaciously with the body of a new dress, the other
two ladies did not put in another stitch that night. From
his drawings Aaron got to his instruments, and before bedtime was
teaching Susan how to draw parallel lines. Susan found that
she had quite an aptitude for parallel lines, and altogether had
a good time of it that evening. It is dull to go on week
after week, and month after month, talking only to one’s
mother and sister. It is dull though one does not oneself
recognise it to be so. A little change in such matters is
so very pleasant. Susan had not the slightest idea of
regarding Aaron as even a possible lover. But young ladies
do like the conversation of young gentlemen. Oh, my
exceedingly proper prim old lady, you who are so shocked at this
as a general doctrine, has it never occurred to you that the
Creator has so intended it?</p>
<p>Susan understanding little of the how and why, knew that she
had had a good time, and was rather in spirits as she went to
bed. But Hetta had been frightened by the dodge.</p>
<p>“Oh, Hetta, you should have looked at those
drawings. He is so clever!” said Susan.</p>
<p>“I don’t know that they would have done me much
good,” replied Hetta.</p>
<p>“Good! Well, they’d do me more good than a
long sermon, I know,” said Susan; “except on a
Sunday, of course,” she added apologetically. This
was an ill-tempered attack both on Hetta and Hetta’s
admirer. But then why had Hetta been so snappish?</p>
<p>“I’m sure he’s a wolf;” thought Hetta
as she went to bed.</p>
<p>“What a very clever young man he is!” thought
Susan to herself as she pulled the warm clothes round about her
shoulders and ears.</p>
<p>“Well that certainly was an improvement,” thought
Aaron as he went through the same operation, with a stronger
feeling of self-approbation than he had enjoyed for some time
past.</p>
<p>In the course of the next fortnight the family arrangements
all altered themselves. Unless when Beckard was there Aaron
would sit in the widow’s place, the widow would take
Susan’s chair, and the two girls would be opposite.
And then Dunn would read to them; not sermons, but passages from
Shakspeare, and Byron, and Longfellow. “He reads much
better than Mr. Beckard,” Susan had said one night.
“Of course you’re a competent judge!” had been
Hetta’s retort. “I mean that I like it
better,” said Susan. “It’s well that all
people don’t think alike,” replied Hetta.</p>
<p>And then there was a deal of talking. The widow herself,
as unconscious in this respect as her youngest daughter,
certainly did find that a little variety was agreeable on those
long winter nights; and talked herself with unaccustomed
freedom. And Beckard came there oftener and talked very
much. When he was there the two young men did all the
talking, and they pounded each other immensely. But still
there grew up a sort of friendship between them.</p>
<p>“Mr. Beckard seems quite to take to him,” said
Mrs. Bell to her eldest daughter.</p>
<p>“It is his great good nature, mother,” replied
Hetta.</p>
<p>It was at the end of the second month when Aaron took another
step in advance—a perilous step. Sometimes on
evenings he still went on with his drawing for an hour or so; but
during three or four evenings he never asked any one to look at
what he was doing. On one Friday he sat over his work till
late, without any reading or talking at all; so late that at last
Mrs. Bell said, “If you’re going to sit much longer,
Mr. Dunn, I’ll get you to put out the candles.”
Thereby showing, had he known it or had she, that the
mother’s confidence in the young man was growing
fast. Hetta knew all about it, and dreaded that the growth
was too quick.</p>
<p>“I’ve finished now,” said Aaron; and he
looked carefully at the cardboard on which he had been washing in
his water-colours. “I’ve finished
now.” He then hesitated a moment; but ultimately he
put the card into his portfolio and carried it up to his
bedroom. Who does not perceive that it was intended as a
present to Susan Bell?</p>
<p>The question which Aaron asked himself that night, and which
he hardly knew how to answer, was this. Should he offer the
drawing to Susan in the presence of her mother and sister, or on
some occasion when they two might be alone together? No
such occasion had ever yet occurred, but Aaron thought that it
might probably be brought about. But then he wanted to make
no fuss about it. His first intention had been to chuck the
drawing lightly across the table when it was completed, and so
make nothing of it. But he had finished it with more care
than he had at first intended; and then he had hesitated when he
had finished it. It was too late now for that plan of
chucking it over the table.</p>
<p>On the Saturday evening when he came down from his room, Mr.
Beckard was there, and there was no opportunity that night.
On the Sunday, in conformity with a previous engagement, he went
to hear Mr. Beckard preach, and walked to and from meeting with
the family. This pleased Mrs. Bell, and they were all very
gracious that afternoon. But Sunday was no day for the
picture.</p>
<p>On Monday the thing had become of importance to him.
Things always do when they are kept over. Before tea that
evening when he came down Mrs. Bell and Susan only were in the
room. He knew Hetta for his foe, and therefore determined
to use this occasion.</p>
<p>“Miss Susan,” he said, stammering somewhat, and
blushing too, poor fool! “I have done a little
drawing which I want you to accept,” and he put his
portfolio down on the table.</p>
<p>“Oh! I don’t know,” said Susan, who
had seen the blush.</p>
<p>Mrs. Bell had seen the blush also, and pursed her mouth up,
and looked grave. Had there been no stammering and no
blush, she might have thought nothing of it.</p>
<p>Aaron saw at once that his little gift was not to go down
smoothly. He was, however, in for it now, so he picked it
out from among the other papers in the case and brought it over
to Susan. He endeavoured to hand it to her with an air of
indifference, but I cannot say that he succeeded.</p>
<p>It was a very pretty, well-finished, water-coloured drawing,
representing still the same bridge, but with more adjuncts.
In Susan’s eyes it was a work of high art. Of
pictures probably she had seen but little, and her liking for the
artist no doubt added to her admiration. But the more she
admired it and wished for it, the stronger was her feeling that
she ought not to take it.</p>
<p>Poor Susan! she stood for a minute looking at the drawing, but
she said nothing; not even a word of praise. She felt that
she was red in the face, and uncourteous to their lodger; but her
mother was looking at her and she did not know how to behave
herself.</p>
<p>Mrs. Bell put out her hand for the sketch, trying to bethink
herself as she did so in what least uncivil way she could refuse
the present. She took a moment to look at it collecting her
thoughts, and as she did so her woman’s wit came to her
aid.</p>
<p>“Oh dear, Mr. Dunn, it is very pretty; quite a beautiful
picture. I cannot let Susan rob you of that. You must
keep that for some of your own particular friends.”</p>
<p>“But I did it for her,” said Aaron innocently.</p>
<p>Susan looked down at the ground, half pleased at the
declaration. The drawing would look very pretty in a small
gilt frame put over her dressing-table. But the matter now
was altogether in her mother’s hands.</p>
<p>“I am afraid it is too valuable, sir, for Susan to
accept.”</p>
<p>“It is not valuable at all,” said Aaron, declining
to take it back from the widow’s hand.</p>
<p>“Oh, I am quite sure it is. It is worth ten
dollars at least—or twenty,” said poor Mrs. Bell, not
in the very best taste. But she was perplexed, and did not
know how to get out of the scrape. The article in question
now lay upon the table-cloth, appropriated by no one, and at this
moment Hetta came into the room.</p>
<p>“It is not worth ten cents,” said Aaron, with
something like a frown on his brow. “But as we had
been talking about the bridge, I thought Miss Susan would accept
it.”</p>
<p>“Accept what?” said Hetta. And then her eye
fell upon the drawing and she took it up.</p>
<p>“It is beautifully done,” said Mrs. Bell, wishing
much to soften the matter; perhaps the more so that Hetta the
demure was now present. “I am telling Mr. Dunn that
we can’t take a present of anything so valuable.”</p>
<p>“Oh dear no,” said Hetta. “It
wouldn’t be right.”</p>
<p>It was a cold frosty evening in March, and the fire was
burning brightly on the hearth. Aaron Dunn took up the
drawing quietly—very quietly—and rolling it up, as
such drawings are rolled, put it between the blazing logs.
It was the work of four evenings, and his
chef-d’œuvre in the way of art.</p>
<p>Susan, when she saw what he had done, burst out into
tears. The widow could very readily have done so also, but
she was able to refrain herself, and merely
exclaimed—“Oh, Mr. Dunn!”</p>
<p>“If Mr. Dunn chooses to burn his own picture, he has
certainly a right to do so,” said Hetta.</p>
<p>Aaron immediately felt ashamed of what he had done; and he
also could have cried, but for his manliness. He walked
away to one of the parlour-windows, and looked out upon the
frosty night. It was dark, but the stars were bright, and
he thought that he should like to be walking fast by himself
along the line of rails towards Balston. There he stood,
perhaps for three minutes. He thought it would be proper to
give Susan time to recover from her tears.</p>
<p>“Will you please to come to your tea, sir?” said
the soft voice of Mrs. Bell.</p>
<p>He turned round to do so, and found that Susan was gone.
It was not quite in her power to recover from her tears in three
minutes. And then the drawing had been so beautiful!
It had been done expressly for her too! And there had been
something, she knew not what, in his eye as he had so
declared. She had watched him intently over those four
evenings’ work, wondering why he did not show it, till her
feminine curiosity had become rather strong. It was
something very particular, she was sure, and she had learned that
all that precious work had been for her. Now all that
precious work was destroyed. How was it possible that she
should not cry for more than three minutes?</p>
<p>The others took their meal in perfect silence, and when it was
over the two women sat down to their work. Aaron had a book
which he pretended to read, but instead of reading he was
bethinking himself that he had behaved badly. What right
had he to throw them all into such confusion by indulging in his
passion? He was ashamed of what he had done, and fancied
that Susan would hate him. Fancying that, he began to find
at the same time that he by no means hated her.</p>
<p>At last Hetta got up and left the room. She knew that
her sister was sitting alone in the cold, and Hetta was
affectionate. Susan had not been in fault, and therefore
Hetta went up to console her.</p>
<p>“Mrs. Bell,” said Aaron, as soon as the door was
closed, “I beg your pardon for what I did just
now.”</p>
<p>“Oh, sir, I’m so sorry that the picture is
burnt,” said poor Mrs. Bell.</p>
<p>“The picture does not matter a straw,” said
Aaron. “But I see that I have disturbed you
all,—and I am afraid I have made Miss Susan
unhappy.”</p>
<p>“She was grieved because your picture was burnt,”
said Mrs. Bell, putting some emphasis on the “your,”
intending to show that her daughter had not regarded the drawing
as her own. But the emphasis bore another meaning; and so
the widow perceived as soon as she had spoken.</p>
<p>“Oh, I can do twenty more of the same if anybody wanted
them,” said Aaron. “If I do another like it,
will you let her take it, Mrs. Bell?—just to show that you
have forgiven me, and that we are friends as we were
before?”</p>
<p>Was he, or was he not a wolf? That was the question
which Mrs. Bell scarcely knew how to answer. Hetta had
given her voice, saying he was lupine. Mr. Beckard’s
opinion she had not liked to ask directly. Mr. Beckard she
thought would probably propose to Hetta; but as yet he had not
done so. And, as he was still a stranger in the family, she
did not like in any way to compromise Susan’s name.
Indirectly she had asked the question, and, indirectly also, Mr.
Beckard’s answer had been favourable.</p>
<p>“But it mustn’t mean anything, sir,” was the
widow’s weak answer, when she had paused on the question
for a moment.</p>
<p>“Oh no, of course not,” said Aaron, joyously, and
his face became radiant and happy. “And I do beg your
pardon for burning it; and the young ladies’ pardon
too.” And then he rapidly got out his cardboard, and
set himself to work about another bridge. The widow,
meditating many things in her heart, commenced the hemming of a
handkerchief.</p>
<p>In about an hour the two girls came back to the room and
silently took their accustomed places. Aaron hardly looked
up, but went on diligently with his drawing. This bridge
should be a better bridge than that other. Its acceptance
was now assured. Of course it was to mean nothing.
That was a matter of course. So he worked away diligently,
and said nothing to anybody.</p>
<p>When they went off to bed the two girls went into the
mother’s room. “Oh, mother, I hope he is not
very angry,” said Susan.</p>
<p>“Angry!” said Hetta, “if anybody should be
angry, it is mother. He ought to have known that Susan
could not accept it. He should never have offered
it.”</p>
<p>“But he’s doing another,” said Mrs.
Bell.</p>
<p>“Not for her,” said Hetta.</p>
<p>“Yes he is,” said Mrs. Bell, “and I have
promised that she shall take it.” Susan as she heard
this sank gently into the chair behind her, and her eyes became
full of tears. The intimation was almost too much for
her.</p>
<p>“Oh, mother!” said Hetta.</p>
<p>“But I particularly said that it was to mean
nothing.”</p>
<p>“Oh, mother, that makes it worse.”</p>
<p>Why should Hetta interfere in this way, thought Susan to
herself. Had she interfered when Mr. Beckard gave Hetta a
testament bound in Morocco? had not she smiled, and looked
gratified, and kissed her sister, and declared that Phineas
Beckard was a nice dear man, and by far the most elegant preacher
at the Springs? Why should Hetta be so cruel?</p>
<p>“I don’t see that, my dear,” said the
mother. Hetta would not explain before her sister, so they
all went to bed.</p>
<p>On the Thursday evening the drawing was finished. Not a
word had been said about it, at any rate in his presence, and he
had gone on working in silence. “There,” said
he, late on the Thursday evening, “I don’t know that
it will be any better if I go on daubing for another hour.
There, Miss Susan; there’s another bridge. I hope
that will neither burst with the frost, nor yet be destroyed by
fire,” and he gave it a light flip with his fingers and
sent it skimming over the table.</p>
<p>Susan blushed and smiled, and took it up. “Oh, it
is beautiful,” she said. “Isn’t it
beautifully done, mother?” and then all the three got up to
look at it, and all confessed that it was excellently done.</p>
<p>“And I am sure we are very much obliged to you,”
said Susan after a pause, remembering that she had not yet
thanked him.</p>
<p>“Oh, it’s nothing,” said he, not quite
liking the word “we.” On the following day he
returned from his work to Saratoga about noon. This he had
never done before, and therefore no one expected that he would be
seen in the house before the evening. On this occasion,
however, he went straight thither, and as chance would have it,
both the widow and her elder daughter were out. Susan was
there alone in charge of the house.</p>
<p>He walked in and opened the parlour door. There she sat,
with her feet on the fender, with her work unheeded on the table
behind her, and the picture, Aaron’s drawing, lying on her
knees. She was gazing at it intently as he entered,
thinking in her young heart that it possessed all the beauties
which a picture could possess.</p>
<p>“Oh, Mr. Dunn,” she said, getting up and holding
the telltale sketch behind the skirt of her dress.</p>
<p>“Miss Susan, I have come here to tell your mother that I
must start for New York this afternoon and be there for six
weeks, or perhaps longer.”</p>
<p>“Mother is out,” said she; “I’m so
sorry.”</p>
<p>“Is she?” said Aaron.</p>
<p>“And Hetta too. Dear me. And you’ll be
wanting dinner. I’ll go and see about it.”</p>
<p>Aaron began to swear that he could not possibly eat any
dinner. He had dined once, and was going to dine
again;—anything to keep her from going.</p>
<p>“But you must have something, Mr. Dunn,” and she
walked towards the door.</p>
<p>But he put his back to it. “Miss Susan,”
said he, “I guess I’ve been here nearly two
months.”</p>
<p>“Yes, sir, I believe you have,” she replied,
shaking in her shoes, and not knowing which way to look.</p>
<p>“And I hope we have been good friends.”</p>
<p>“Yes, sir,” said Susan, almost beside herself as
to what she was saying.</p>
<p>“I’m going away now, and it seems to be such a
time before I’ll be back.”</p>
<p>“Will it, Sir?”</p>
<p>“Six weeks, Miss Susan!” and then he paused,
looking into her eyes, to see what he could read there. She
leant against the table, pulling to pieces a morsel of
half-ravelled muslin which she held in her hand; but her eyes
were turned to the ground, and he could hardly see them.</p>
<p>“Miss Susan,” he continued, “I may as well
speak out now as at another time.” He too was looking
towards the ground, and clearly did not know what to do with his
hands. “The truth is just this. I—I love
you dearly, with all my heart. I never saw any one I ever
thought so beautiful, so nice, and so good;—and
what’s more, I never shall. I’m not very good
at this sort of thing, I know; but I couldn’t go away from
Saratoga for six weeks and not tell you.” And then he
ceased. He did not ask for any love in return. His
presumption had not got so far as that yet. He merely
declared his passion, leaning against the door, and there he
stood twiddling his thumbs.</p>
<p>Susan had not the slightest conception of the way in which she
ought to receive such a declaration. She had never had a
lover before; nor had she ever thought of Aaron absolutely as a
lover, though something very like love for him had been crossing
over her spirit. Now, at this moment, she felt that he was
the beau-idéal of manhood, though his boots were covered
with the railway mud, and though his pantaloons were tucked up in
rolls round his ankles. He was a fine, well-grown,
open-faced fellow, whose eye was bold and yet tender, whose brow
was full and broad, and all his bearing manly. Love
him! Of course she loved him. Why else had her heart
melted with pleasure when her mother said that that second
picture was to be accepted?</p>
<p>But what was she to say? Anything but the open truth;
she well knew that. The open truth would not do at
all. What would her mother say and Hetta if she were rashly
to say that? Hetta, she knew, would be dead against such a
lover, and of her mother’s approbation she had hardly more
hope. Why they should disapprove of Aaron as a lover she
had never asked herself. There are many nice things that
seem to be wrong only because they are so nice. Maybe that
Susan regarded a lover as one of them. “Oh, Mr. Dunn,
you shouldn’t.” That in fact was all that she
could say.</p>
<p>“Should not I?” said he. “Well,
perhaps not; but there’s the truth, and no harm ever comes
of that. Perhaps I’d better not ask you for an answer
now, but I thought it better you should know it all. And
remember this—I only care for one thing now in the world,
and that is for your love.” And then he paused,
thinking possibly that in spite of what he had said he might
perhaps get some sort of an answer, some inkling of the state of
her heart’s disposition towards him.</p>
<p>But Susan had at once resolved to take him at his word when he
suggested that an immediate reply was not necessary. To say
that she loved him was of course impossible, and to say that she
did not was equally so. She determined therefore to close
at once with the offer of silence.</p>
<p>When he ceased speaking there was a moment’s pause,
during which he strove hard to read what might be written on her
down-turned face. But he was not good at such
reading. “Well, I guess I’ll go and get my
things ready now,” he said, and then turned round to open
the door.</p>
<p>“Mother will be in before you are gone, I
suppose,” said Susan.</p>
<p>“I have only got twenty minutes,” said he, looking
at his watch. “But, Susan, tell her what I have said
to you. Goodbye.” And he put out his
hand. He knew he should see her again, but this had been
his plan to get her hand in his.</p>
<p>“Good-bye, Mr. Dunn,” and she gave him her
hand.</p>
<p>He held it tight for a moment, so that she could not draw it
away,—could not if she would. “Will you tell
your mother?” he asked.</p>
<p>“Yes,” she answered, quite in a whisper.
“I guess I’d better tell her.” And then
she gave a long sigh. He pressed her hand again and got it
up to his lips.</p>
<p>“Mr. Dunn, don’t,” she said. But he
did kiss it. “God bless you, my own dearest, dearest
girl! I’ll just open the door as I come down.
Perhaps Mrs. Bell will be here.” And then he rushed
up stairs.</p>
<p>But Mrs. Bell did not come in. She and Hetta were at a
weekly service at Mr. Beckard’s meeting-house, and Mr.
Beckard it seemed had much to say. Susan, when left alone,
sat down and tried to think. But she could not think; she
could only love. She could use her mind only in recounting
to herself the perfections of that demigod whose heavy steps were
so audible overhead, as he walked to and fro collecting his
things and putting them into his bag.</p>
<p>And then, just when he had finished, she bethought herself
that he must be hungry. She flew to the kitchen, but she
was too late. Before she could even reach at the loaf of
bread he descended the stairs, with a clattering noise, and heard
her voice as she spoke quickly to Kate O’Brien.</p>
<p>“Miss Susan,” he said, “don’t get
anything for me, for I’m off.”</p>
<p>“Oh, Mr. Dunn, I am so sorry. You’ll be so
hungry on your journey,” and she came out to him in the
passage.</p>
<p>“I shall want nothing on the journey, dearest, if
you’ll say one kind word to me.”</p>
<p>Again her eyes went to the ground. “What do you
want me to say, Mr. Dunn?”</p>
<p>“Say, God bless you, Aaron.”</p>
<p>“God bless you, Aaron,” said she; and yet she was
sure that she had not declared her love. He however thought
otherwise, and went up to New York with a happy heart.</p>
<p>Things happened in the next fortnight rather quickly.
Susan at once resolved to tell her mother, but she resolved also
not to tell Hetta. That afternoon she got her mother to
herself in Mrs. Bell’s own room, and then she made a clean
breast of it.</p>
<p>“And what did you say to him, Susan?”</p>
<p>“I said nothing, mother.”</p>
<p>“Nothing, dear!”</p>
<p>“No, mother; not a word. He told me he
didn’t want it.” She forgot how she had used
his Christian name in bidding God bless him.</p>
<p>“Oh dear!” said the widow.</p>
<p>“Was it very wrong?” asked Susan.</p>
<p>“But what do you think yourself, my child?” asked
Mrs. Bell after a while. “What are your own
feelings.”</p>
<p>Mrs. Bell was sitting on a chair and Susan was standing
opposite to her against the post of the bed. She made no
answer, but moving from her place, she threw herself into her
mother’s arms, and hid her face on her mother’s
shoulder. It was easy enough to guess what were her
feelings.</p>
<p>“But, my darling,” said her mother, “you
must not think that it is an engagement.”</p>
<p>“No,” said Susan, sorrowfully.</p>
<p>“Young men say those things to amuse
themselves.” Wolves, she would have said, had she
spoken out her mind freely.</p>
<p>“Oh, mother, he is not like that.”</p>
<p>The daughter contrived to extract a promise from the mother
that Hetta should not be told just at present. Mrs. Bell
calculated that she had six weeks before her; as yet Mr. Beckard
had not spoken out, but there was reason to suppose that he would
do so before those six weeks would be over, and then she would be
able to seek counsel from him.</p>
<p>Mr. Beckard spoke out at the end of six days, and Hetta
frankly accepted him. “I hope you’ll love your
brother-in-law,” said she to Susan.</p>
<p>“Oh, I will indeed,” said Susan; and in the
softness of her heart at the moment she almost made up her mind
to tell; but Hetta was full of her own affairs, and thus it
passed off.</p>
<p>It was then arranged that Hetta should go and spend a week
with Mr. Beckard’s parents. Old Mr. Beckard was a
farmer living near Utica, and now that the match was declared and
approved, it was thought well that Hetta should know her future
husband’s family. So she went for a week, and Mr.
Beckard went with her. “He will be back in plenty of
time for me to speak to him before Aaron Dunn’s six weeks
are over,” said Mrs. Bell to herself.</p>
<p>But things did not go exactly as she expected. On the
very morning after the departure of the engaged couple, there
came a letter from Aaron, saying that he would be at Saratoga
that very evening. The railway people had ordered him down
again for some days’ special work; then he was to go
elsewhere, and not to return to Saratoga till June.
“But he hoped,” so said the letter, “that Mrs.
Bell would not turn him into the street even then, though the
summer might have come, and her regular lodgers might be
expected.”</p>
<p>“Oh dear, oh dear!” said Mrs. Bell to herself,
reflecting that she had no one of whom she could ask advice, and
that she must decide that very day. Why had she let Mr.
Beckard go without telling him? Then she told Susan, and
Susan spent the day trembling. Perhaps, thought Mrs. Bell,
he will say nothing about it. In such case, however, would
it not be her duty to say something? Poor mother! She
trembled nearly as much as Susan.</p>
<p>It was dark when the fatal knock came at the door. The
tea-things were already laid, and the tea-cake was already baked;
for it would at any rate be necessary to give Mr. Dunn his
tea. Susan, when she heard the knock, rushed from her chair
and took refuge up stairs. The widow gave a long sigh and
settled her dress. Kate O’Brien with willing step
opened the door, and bade her old friend welcome.</p>
<p>“How are the ladies?” asked Aaron, trying to
gather something from the face and voice of the domestic.</p>
<p>“Miss Hetta and Mr. Beckard be gone off to Utica, just
man-and-wife like! and so they are, more power to
them.”</p>
<p>“Oh indeed; I’m very glad,” said
Aaron—and so he was; very glad to have Hetta the demure out
of the way. And then he made his way into the parlour,
doubting much, and hoping much.</p>
<p>Mrs. Bell rose from her chair, and tried to look grave.
Aaron glancing round the room saw that Susan was not there.
He walked straight up to the widow, and offered her his hand,
which she took. It might be that Susan had not thought fit
to tell, and in such case it would not be right for him to
compromise her; so he said never a word.</p>
<p>But the subject was too important to the mother to allow of
her being silent when the young man stood before her.
“Oh, Mr. Dunn,” said she, “what is this you
have been saying to Susan?”</p>
<p>“I have asked her to be my wife,” said he, drawing
himself up and looking her full in the face. Mrs.
Bell’s heart was almost as soft as her daughter’s,
and it was nearly gone; but at the moment she had nothing to say
but, “Oh dear, oh dear!”</p>
<p>“May I not call you mother?” said he, taking both
her hands in his.</p>
<p>“Oh dear—oh dear! But will you be good to
her? Oh, Aaron Dunn, if you deceive my child!”</p>
<p>In another quarter of an hour, Susan was kneeling at her
mother’s knee, with her face on her mother’s lap; the
mother was wiping tears out of her eyes; and Aaron was standing
by holding one of the widow’s hands.</p>
<p>“You are my mother too, now,” said he. What
would Hetta and Mr. Beckard say, when they came back? But
then he surely was not a wolf!</p>
<p>There were four or five days left for courtship before Hetta
and Mr. Beckard would return; four or five days during which
Susan might be happy, Aaron triumphant, and Mrs. Bell
nervous. Days I have said, but after all it was only the
evenings that were so left. Every morning Susan got up to
give Aaron his breakfast, but Mrs. Bell got up also. Susan
boldly declared her right to do so, and Mrs. Bell found no
objection which she could urge.</p>
<p>But after that Aaron was always absent till seven or eight in
the evening, when he would return to his tea. Then came the
hour or two of lovers’ intercourse.</p>
<p>But they were very tame, those hours. The widow still
felt an undefined fear that she was wrong, and though her heart
yearned to know that her daughter was happy in the sweet
happiness of accepted love, yet she dreaded to be too
confident. Not a word had been said about money matters;
not a word of Aaron Dunn’s relatives. So she did not
leave them by themselves, but waited with what patience she could
for the return of her wise counsellors.</p>
<p>And then Susan hardly knew how to behave herself with her
accepted suitor. She felt that she was very happy; but
perhaps she was most happy when she was thinking about him
through the long day, assisting in fixing little things for his
comfort, and waiting for his evening return. And as he sat
there in the parlour, she could be happy then too, if she were
but allowed to sit still and look at him,—not stare at him,
but raise her eyes every now and again to his face for the
shortest possible glance, as she had been used to do ever since
he came there.</p>
<p>But he, unconscionable lover, wanted to hear her speak, was
desirous of being talked to, and perhaps thought that he should
by rights be allowed to sit by her, and hold her hand. No
such privileges were accorded to him. If they had been
alone together, walking side by side on the green turf, as lovers
should walk, she would soon have found the use of her
tongue,—have talked fast enough no doubt. Under such
circumstances, when a girl’s shyness has given way to real
intimacy, there is in general no end to her power of
chatting. But though there was much love between Aaron and
Susan, there was as yet but little intimacy. And then, let
a mother be ever so motherly—and no mother could have more
of a mother’s tenderness than Mrs. Bell—still her
presence must be a restraint. Aaron was very fond of Mrs.
Bell; but nevertheless he did sometimes wish that some domestic
duty would take her out of the parlour for a few happy
minutes. Susan went out very often, but Mrs. Bell seemed to
be a fixture.</p>
<p>Once for a moment he did find his love alone, immediately as
he came into the house. “My own Susan, you do love
me? do say so to me once.” And he contrived to slip
his arm round her waist. “Yes,” she whispered;
but she slipped like an eel from his hands, and left him only
preparing himself for a kiss. And then when she got to her
room, half frightened, she clasped her hands together, and
bethought herself that she did really love him with a strength
and depth of love which filled her whole existence. Why
could she not have told him something of all this?</p>
<p>And so the few days of his second sojourn at Saratoga passed
away, not altogether satisfactorily. It was settled that he
should return to New York on Saturday night, leaving Saratoga on
that evening; and as the Beckards—Hetta was already
regarded quite as a Beckard—were to be back to dinner on
that day, Mrs. Bell would have an opportunity of telling her
wondrous tale. It might be well that Mr. Beckard should see
Aaron before his departure.</p>
<p>On that Saturday the Beckards did arrive just in time for
dinner. It may be imagined that Susan’s appetite was
not very keen, nor her manner very collected. But all this
passed by unobserved in the importance attached to the various
Beckard arrangements which came under discussion. Ladies
and gentlemen circumstanced as were Hetta and Mr. Beckard are
perhaps a little too apt to think that their own affairs are
paramount. But after dinner Susan vanished at once, and
when Hetta prepared to follow her, desirous of further talk about
matrimonial arrangements, her mother stopped her, and the
disclosure was made.</p>
<p>“Proposed to her!” said Hetta, who perhaps thought
that one marriage in a family was enough at a time.</p>
<p>“Yes, my love—and he did it, I must say, in a very
honourable way, telling her not to make any answer till she had
spoken to me;—now that was very nice; was it not,
Phineas?” Mrs. Bell had become very anxious that
Aaron should not be voted a wolf.</p>
<p>“And what has been said to him since?” asked the
discreet Phineas.</p>
<p>“Why—nothing absolutely decisive.” Oh,
Mrs. Bell! “You see I know nothing as to his
means.”</p>
<p>“Nothing at all,” said Hetta.</p>
<p>“He is a man that will always earn his bread,”
said Mr. Beckard; and Mrs. Bell blessed him in her heart for
saying it.</p>
<p>“But has he been encouraged?” asked Hetta.</p>
<p>“Well; yes, he has,” said the widow.</p>
<p>“Then Susan I suppose likes him?” asked
Phineas.</p>
<p>“Well; yes, she does,” said the widow. And
the conference ended in a resolution that Phineas Beckard should
have a conversation with Aaron Dunn, as to his worldly means and
position; and that he, Phineas, should decide whether Aaron
might, or might not be at once accepted as a lover, according to
the tenor of that conversation. Poor Susan was not told
anything of all this. “Better not,” said Hetta
the demure. “It will only flurry her the
more.” How would she have liked it, if without
consulting her, they had left it to Aaron to decide whether or no
she might marry Phineas?</p>
<p>They knew where on the works Aaron was to be found, and
thither Mr. Beckard rode after dinner. We need not narrate
at length the conference between the young men. Aaron at
once declared that he had nothing but what he made as an
engineer, and explained that he held no permanent situation on
the line. He was well paid at that present moment, but at
the end of summer he would have to look for employment.</p>
<p>“Then you can hardly marry quite at present,” said
the discreet minister.</p>
<p>“Perhaps not quite immediately.”</p>
<p>“And long engagements are never wise,” said the
other.</p>
<p>“Three or four months,” suggested Aaron. But
Mr. Beckard shook his head.</p>
<p>The afternoon at Mrs. Bell’s house was melancholy.
The final decision of the three judges was as follows.
There was to be no engagement; of course no correspondence.
Aaron was to be told that it would be better that he should get
lodgings elsewhere when he returned; but that he would be allowed
to visit at Mrs. Bell’s house,—and at Mrs.
Beckard’s, which was very considerate. If he should
succeed in getting a permanent appointment, and if he and Susan
still held the same mind, why then—&c. &c.
Such was Susan’s fate, as communicated to her by Mrs. Bell
and Hetta. She sat still and wept when she heard it; but
she did not complain. She had always felt that Hetta would
be against her.</p>
<p>“Mayn’t I see him, then?” she said through
her tears.</p>
<p>Hetta thought she had better not. Mrs. Bell thought she
might. Phineas decided that they might shake hands, but
only in full conclave. There was to be no lovers’
farewell. Aaron was to leave the house at half-past five;
but before he went Susan should be called down. Poor
Susan! She sat down and bemoaned herself; uncomplaining,
but very sad.</p>
<p>Susan was soft, feminine, and manageable. But Aaron Dunn
was not very soft, was especially masculine, and in some matters
not easily manageable. When Mr. Beckard in the
widow’s presence—Hetta had retired in obedience to
her lover—informed him of the court’s decision, there
came over his face the look which he had worn when he burned the
picture. “Mrs. Bell,” he said, “had
encouraged his engagement; and he did not understand why other
people should now come and disturb it.”</p>
<p>“Not an engagement, Aaron,” said Mrs. Bell
piteously.</p>
<p>“He was able and willing to work,” he said,
“and knew his profession. What young man of his age
had done better than he had?” and he glanced round at them
with perhaps more pride than was quite becoming.</p>
<p>Then Mr. Beckard spoke out, very wisely no doubt, but perhaps
a little too much at length. Sons and daughters, as well as
fathers and mothers, will know very well what he said; so I need
not repeat his words. I cannot say that Aaron listened with
much attention, but he understood perfectly what the upshot of it
was. Many a man understands the purport of many a sermon
without listening to one word in ten. Mr. Beckard meant to
be kind in his manner; indeed was so, only that Aaron could not
accept as kindness any interference on his part.</p>
<p>“I’ll tell you what, Mrs. Bell,” said
he. “I look upon myself as engaged to her. And
I look on her as engaged to me. I tell you so fairly; and I
believe that’s her mind as well as mine.”</p>
<p>“But, Aaron, you won’t try to see her—or to
write to her,—not in secret; will you?”</p>
<p>“When I try to see her, I’ll come and knock at
this door; and if I write to her, I’ll write to her full
address by the post. I never did and never will do anything
in secret.”</p>
<p>“I know you’re good and honest,” said the
widow with her handkerchief to her eyes.</p>
<p>“Then why do you separate us?” asked he, almost
roughly. “I suppose I may see her at any rate before
I go. My time’s nearly up now, I guess.”</p>
<p>And then Susan was called for, and she and Hetta came down
together. Susan crept in behind her sister. Her eyes
were red with weeping, and her appearance was altogether
disconsolate. She had had a lover for a week, and now she
was to be robbed of him.</p>
<p>“Good-bye, Susan,” said Aaron, and he walked up to
her without bashfulness or embarrassment. Had they all been
compliant and gracious to him he would have been as bashful as
his love; but now his temper was hot. “Good-bye,
Susan,” and she took his hand, and he held hers till he had
finished. “And remember this, I look upon you as my
promised wife, and I don’t fear that you’ll deceive
me. At any rate I shan’t deceive you.”</p>
<p>“Good-bye, Aaron,” she sobbed.</p>
<p>“Good-bye, and God bless you, my own
darling!” And then without saying a word to any one
else, he turned his back upon them and went his way.</p>
<p>There had been something very consolatory, very sweet, to the
poor girl in her lover’s last words. And yet they had
almost made her tremble. He had been so bold, and stern,
and confident. He had seemed so utterly to defy the
impregnable discretion of Mr. Beckard, so to despise the demure
propriety of Hetta. But of this she felt sure, when she
came to question her heart, that she could never, never, never
cease to love him better than all the world beside. She
would wait—patiently if she could find patience—and
then, if he deserted her, she would die.</p>
<p>In another month Hetta became Mrs. Beckard. Susan
brisked up a little for the occasion, and looked very pretty as
bridesmaid. She was serviceable too in arranging household
matters, hemming linen and sewing table-cloths; though of course
in these matters she did not do a tenth of what Hetta did.</p>
<p>Then the summer came, the Saratoga summer of July, August, and
September, during which the widow’s house was full; and
Susan’s hands saved the pain of her heart, for she was
forced into occupation. Now that Hetta was gone to her own
duties, it was necessary that Susan’s part in the household
should be more prominent.</p>
<p>Aaron did not come back to his work at Saratoga. Why he
did not they could not then learn. During the whole long
summer they heard not a word of him nor from him; and then when
the cold winter months came and their boarders had left them,
Mrs. Beckard congratulated her sister in that she had given no
further encouragement to a lover who cared so little for
her. This was very hard to bear. But Susan did bear
it.</p>
<p>That winter was very sad. They learned nothing of Aaron
Dunn till about January; and then they heard that he was doing
very well. He was engaged on the Erie trunk line, was paid
highly, and was much esteemed. And yet he neither came nor
sent! “He has an excellent situation,” their
informant told them. “And a permanent one?”
asked the widow. “Oh, yes, no doubt,” said the
gentleman, “for I happen to know that they count greatly on
him.” And yet he sent no word of love.</p>
<p>After that the winter became very sad indeed. Mrs. Bell
thought it to be her duty now to teach her daughter that in all
probability she would see Aaron Dunn no more. It was open
to him to leave her without being absolutely a wolf. He had
been driven from the house when he was poor, and they had no
right to expect that he would return, now that he had made some
rise in the world. “Men do amuse themselves in that
way,” the widow tried to teach her.</p>
<p>“He is not like that, mother,” she said again.</p>
<p>“But they do not think so much of these things as we
do,” urged the mother.</p>
<p>“Don’t they?” said Susan, oh, so
sorrowfully; and so through the whole long winter months she
became paler and paler, and thinner and thinner.</p>
<p>And then Hetta tried to console her with religion, and that
perhaps did not make things any better. Religious
consolation is the best cure for all griefs; but it must not be
looked for specially with regard to any individual sorrow.
A religious man, should he become bankrupt through the
misfortunes of the world, will find true consolation in his
religion even for that sorrow. But a bankrupt, who has not
thought much of such things, will hardly find solace by taking up
religion for that special occasion.</p>
<p>And Hetta perhaps was hardly prudent in her attempts.
She thought that it was wicked in Susan to grow thin and pale for
love of Aaron Dunn, and she hardly hid her thoughts. Susan
was not sure but that it might be wicked, but this doubt in no
way tended to make her plump or rosy. So that in those days
she found no comfort in her sister.</p>
<p>But her mother’s pity and soft love did ease her
sufferings, though it could not make them cease. Her mother
did not tell her that she was wicked, or bid her read long
sermons, or force her to go oftener to the meeting-house.</p>
<p>“He will never come again, I think,” she said one
day, as with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders, she leant with
her head upon her mother’s bosom.</p>
<p>“My own darling,” said the mother, pressing her
child closely to her side.</p>
<p>“You think he never will, eh, mother?” What
could Mrs. Bell say? In her heart of hearts she did not
think he ever would come again.</p>
<p>“No, my child. I do not think he
will.” And then the hot tears ran down, and the sobs
came thick and frequent.</p>
<p>“My darling, my darling!” exclaimed the mother;
and they wept together.</p>
<p>“Was I wicked to love him at the first,” she asked
that night.</p>
<p>“No, my child; you were not wicked at all. At
least I think not.”</p>
<p>“Then why—” Why was he sent
away? It was on her tongue to ask that question; but she
paused and spared her mother. This was as they were going
to bed. The next morning Susan did not get up. She
was not ill, she said; but weak and weary. Would her mother
let her lie that day? And then Mrs. Bell went down alone to
her room, and sorrowed with all her heart for the sorrow of her
child. Why, oh why, had she driven away from her door-sill
the love of an honest man?</p>
<p>On the next morning Susan again did not get up;—nor did
she hear, or if she heard she did not recognise, the step of the
postman who brought a letter to the door. Early, before the
widow’s breakfast, the postman came, and the letter which
he brought was as follows:—</p>
<blockquote><p>“<span class="smcap">My dear Mrs.
Bell</span>,</p>
<p>“I have now got a permanent situation on the Erie line,
and the salary is enough for myself and a wife. At least I
think so, and I hope you will too. I shall be down at
Saratoga to-morrow evening, and I hope neither Susan nor you will
refuse to receive me.</p>
<p style="text-align: right">“Yours affectionately,<br />
“<span class="smcap">Aaron Dunn</span>.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That was all. It was very short, and did not contain one
word of love; but it made the widow’s heart leap for
joy. She was rather afraid that Aaron was angry, he wrote
so curtly and with such a brusque business-like attention to mere
facts; but surely he could have but one object in coming
there. And then he alluded specially to a wife. So
the widow’s heart leapt with joy.</p>
<p>But how was she to tell Susan? She ran up stairs almost
breathless with haste, to the bedroom door; but then she stopped;
too much joy she had heard was as dangerous as too much sorrow;
she must think it over for a while, and so she crept back
again.</p>
<p>But after breakfast—that is, when she had sat for a
while over her teacup—she returned to the room, and this
time she entered it. The letter was in her hand, but held
so as to be hidden;—in her left hand as she sat down with
her right arm towards the invalid.</p>
<p>“Susan dear,” she said, and smiled at her child,
“you’ll be able to get up this morning? eh,
dear?”</p>
<p>“Yes, mother,” said Susan, thinking that her
mother objected to this idleness of her lying in bed. And
so she began to bestir herself.</p>
<p>“I don’t mean this very moment, love.
Indeed, I want to sit with you for a little while,” and she
put her right arm affectionately round her daughter’s
waist.</p>
<p>“Dearest mother,” said Susan.</p>
<p>“Ah! there’s one dearer than me, I guess,”
and Mrs. Bell smiled sweetly, as she made the maternal charge
against her daughter.</p>
<p>Susan raised herself quickly in the bed, and looked straight
into her mother’s face. “Mother, mother,”
she said, “what is it? You’ve something to
tell. Oh, mother!” And stretching herself over,
she struck her hand against the corner of Aaron’s
letter. “Mother, you’ve a letter. Is he
coming, mother?” and with eager eyes and open lips, she sat
up, holding tight to her mother’s arm.</p>
<p>“Yes, love. I have got a letter.”</p>
<p>“Is he—is he coming?”</p>
<p>How the mother answered, I can hardly tell; but she did
answer, and they were soon lying in each other’s arms, warm
with each other’s tears. It was almost hard to say
which was the happier.</p>
<p>Aaron was to be there that evening—that very
evening. “Oh, mother, let me get up,” said
Susan.</p>
<p>But Mrs. Bell said no, not yet; her darling was pale and thin,
and she almost wished that Aaron was not coming for another
week. What if he should come and look at her, and finding
her beauty gone, vanish again and seek a wife elsewhere!</p>
<p>So Susan lay in bed, thinking of her happiness, dozing now and
again, and fearing as she waked that it was a dream, looking
constantly at that drawing of his, which she kept outside upon
the bed, nursing her love and thinking of it, and endeavouring,
vainly endeavouring, to arrange what she would say to him.</p>
<p>“Mother,” she said, when Mrs. Bell once went up to
her, “you won’t tell Hetta and Phineas, will
you? Not to-day, I mean?” Mrs. Bell agreed that
it would be better not to tell them. Perhaps she thought
that she had already depended too much on Hetta and Phineas in
the matter.</p>
<p>Susan’s finery in the way of dress had never been
extensive, and now lately, in these last sad winter days, she had
thought but little of the fashion of her clothes. But when
she began to dress herself for the evening, she did ask her
mother with some anxiety what she had better wear.
“If he loves you he will hardly see what you have
on,” said the mother. But not the less was she
careful to smooth her daughter’s hair, and make the most
that might be made of those faded roses.</p>
<p>How Susan’s heart beat,—how both their hearts beat
as the hands of the clock came round to seven! And then,
sharp at seven, came the knock; that same short bold ringing
knock which Susan had so soon learned to know as belonging to
Aaron Dunn. “Oh mother, I had better go up
stairs,” she cried, starting from her chair.</p>
<p>“No dear; you would only be more nervous.”</p>
<p>“I will, mother.”</p>
<p>“No, no, dear; you have not time;” and then Aaron
Dunn was in the room.</p>
<p>She had thought much what she would say to him, but had not
yet quite made up her mind. It mattered however but very
little. On whatever she might have resolved, her resolution
would have vanished to the wind. Aaron Dunn came into the
room, and in one second she found herself in the centre of a
whirlwind, and his arms were the storms that enveloped her on
every side.</p>
<p>“My own, own darling girl,” he said over and over
again, as he pressed her to his heart, quite regardless of Mrs.
Bell, who stood by, sobbing with joy. “My own
Susan.”</p>
<p>“Aaron, dear Aaron,” she whispered. But she
had already recognised the fact that for the present meeting a
passive part would become her well, and save her a deal of
trouble. She had her lover there quite safe, safe beyond
anything that Mr. or Mrs. Beckard might have to say to the
contrary. She was quite happy; only that there were
symptoms now and again that the whirlwind was about to engulf her
yet once more.</p>
<p>“Dear Aaron, I am so glad you are come,” said the
innocent-minded widow, as she went up stairs with him, to show
him his room; and then he embraced her also. “Dear,
dear mother,” he said.</p>
<p>On the next day there was, as a matter of course, a family
conclave. Hetta and Phineas came down, and discussed the
whole subject of the coming marriage with Mrs. Bell. Hetta
at first was not quite certain;—ought they not to inquire
whether the situation was permanent?</p>
<p>“I won’t inquire at all,” said Mrs. Bell,
with an energy that startled both the daughter and
son-in-law. “I would not part them now; no, not
if—” and the widow shuddered as she thought of her
daughter’s sunken eyes, and pale cheeks.</p>
<p>“He is a good lad,” said Phineas, “and I
trust she will make him a sober steady wife;” and so the
matter was settled.</p>
<p>During this time, Susan and Aaron were walking along the
Balston road; and they also had settled the matter—quite as
satisfactorily.</p>
<p>Such was the courtship of Susan Dunn.</p>
<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COURTSHIP OF SUSAN BELL***</p>
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