"Good enough for me!" she exclaimed."He! Sometimes I wonder if it is right for me to be so happy.I feel almost as if it was wrong.As if something must happen to punish me for it."I did not answer.To tell the truth, I was envious.There was real happiness in the world.This country girl had found it; that Mabel Colton would, no doubt, find it some day--unless she married her Victor, in which case I had my doubts.But what happiness was in store for me?
Nellie did most of the talking thereafter; principally about George, and why he did not come.At last she went in to see if Mother needed her, and, twenty minutes later, when I looked into the bedroom, I saw that she had fallen asleep on the couch.
Mother, too, seemed to be sleeping, and I left them thus.
It was almost eleven o'clock when the sound of carriage wheels in the yard brought me to the window and then to the door.Doctor Quimby had come at last and Taylor was with him.The doctor, in his mackintosh and overshoes, was dry enough, but his companion was wet to the skin.
"Sorry I'm so late, Ros," said the doctor."I was way up to Ebenezer Cahoon's in West Denboro.There's a new edition of Ebenezer, made port this morning, and I was a little bit concerned about the missus.She's all right, though.How's your mother?""Better, I think.She's asleep now.So is Nellie.I suppose George told you she was with her.""Yes.George had a rough passage over that West Denboro road.
It's bad enough in daylight, but on a night like this--whew! Icarried away a wheel turning into Ebenezer's yard, and if George hadn't had his team along I don't know how I'd have got here.I'll go right in and see Mrs.Paine."He left us and I turned to Taylor.
"You're soaked through," I declared."Come out to the kitchen stove.What in the world made you drive way up to that forsaken place? It's a good seven miles.Come out to the kitchen.Quick!"He sat down by the stove and put his wet boots on the hearth.Imixed him a glass of the brandy and hot water and handed him a cigar.
"Why did you do it, George?" I said."I never would have thought of asking such a thing.""I know it," he said."Course you wouldn't ask it.There's plenty in this town that would, but you wouldn't.Maybe that's one reason I was so glad to do it for you.""I am almost sorry you did.It is too great a kindness altogether.
I'm afraid I shouldn't have done as much for you.""Go on! Yes, you would.I know you."
I shook my head.
"No, you don't," I answered."Captain Jed--your prospective father-in-law--said the other day that he had been mistaken; he thought he knew me, but he was beginning to find he did not.""Did he say that? What did he mean?"
"I imagine he meant he wasn't sure whether I was the fool he had believed me to be, or just a sharp rascal."Taylor looked at me over the edge of his glass.
"You think that's what he meant, do you?""I know it."
He put the glass on the floor beside him and laid a hand on my knee.
"Ros," he said, "I don't know for sure what the Cap'n meant, though if he thinks you're either one of the two he's the fool.But _I_know you--better, maybe, than you know yourself.At least Ibelieve I know you better than any one else in the town.""That wouldn't be saying much."
"Wouldn't it? Well, maybe not.But whose fault is it? It's yours, the way I look at it.Ros, I've been meaning to have a talk with you some day; perhaps this is as good a time as any.You make a big mistake in the way you treat Denboro and the folks in it.""What do you mean?"
"I mean just that.Your whole attitude is wrong, has been wrong ever since you first came here to live.You never gave any of us a chance to know you and like you--anybody but me, I mean, and even Inever had but half a chance.You make a mistake, I tell you.
