"Perhaps," said Nelly, and her eyes wandered off into the fitful firelight.
"I suppose you will forget us all very quickly."
"Indeed I shall not. I shall always have the pleasantest memories of Rivermouth."
Here the conversation died a natural death. Nelly sank into a sort of dream, and I meditated. Fearing every moment to be interrupted by some member of the family, I nerved myself to make a bold dash.
"Nelly."
"Well."
"Do you-" I hesitated.
"Do I what?"
"Love anyone very much?"
"Why, of course I do," said Nelly, scattering her revery with a merry laugh.
"I love Uncle Nutter, and Aunt Nutter, and you-and Towser."
Towser, our new dog! I couldn't stand that. I pushed back the stool impatiently and stood in front of her.
"That's not what I mean," I said angrily.
"Well, what do you mean?"
"Do you love anyone to marry him?"
"The idea of it," cried Nelly, laughing.
"But you must tell me."
"Must, Tom?"
"Indeed you must, Nelly."
She had risen from the chair with an amused, perplexed look in her eyes. I held her an instant by the dress.
"Please tell me."
"O you silly boy!" cried Nelly. Then she rumpled my hair all over my forehead and ran laughing out of the room.
Suppose Cinderella had rumpled the prince's hair all over his forehead, how would he have liked it? Suppose the Sleeping Beauty, when the king's son with a kiss set her and all the old clocks agoing in the spell-bound castle-suppose the young minx had looked up and coolly laughed in his eye, I guess the king's son wouldn't have been greatly pleased.
I hesitated a second or two and then rushed after Nelly just in time to run against Miss Abigail, who entered the room with a couple of lighted candles.
"Goodness gracious, Tom!" exclaimed Miss Abigail. "Are you possessed?"
I left her scraping the warm spermaceti from one of her thumbs.
Nelly was in the kitchen talking quite unconcernedly with Kitty Collins.
There she remained until supper-time. Supper over, we all adjourned to the sitting-room. I planned and plotted, but could manage in no way to get Nelly alone. She and the Captain played cribbage all the evening.
The next morning my lady did not make her appearance until we were seated at the breakfast-table. I had got up at daylight myself. Immediately after breakfast the carriage arrived to take her to the railway station. A gentleman stepped from this carriage, and greatly to my surprise was warmly welcomed by the Captain and Miss Abigail, and by Miss Nelly herself, who seemed unnecessarily glad to see him. From the hasty conversation that followed I learned that the gentleman had come somewhat unexpectedly to conduct Miss Nelly to Boston. But how did he know that she was to leave that morning? Nelly bade farewell to the Captain and Miss Abigail, made a little rush and kissed me on the nose, and was gone.
As the wheels of the hack rolled up the street and over my finer feelings, I turned to the Captain.
"Who was that gentleman, sir?"
"That was Mr. Waldron."
"A relation of yours, sir?" I asked craftily.
"No relation of mine-a relation of Nelly's," said the Captain, smiling.
"A cousin," I suggested, feeling a strange hatred spring up in my bosom for the unknown.
"Well, I suppose you might call him a cousin for the present. He's going to marry little Nelly next summer."
In one of Peter Parley's valuable historical works is a description of an earthquake at Lisbon. "At the first shock the inhabitants rushed into the streets; the earth yawned at their feet and the houses tottered and fell on every side." I staggered past the Captain into the street; a giddiness came over me; the earth yawned at my feet, and the houses threatened to fall in on every side of me. How distinctly I remember that momentary sense of confusion when everything in the world seemed toppling over into ruins.
As I have remarked, my love for Nelly is a thing of the past. I had not thought of her for years until I sat down to write this chapter, and yet, now that all is said and done, I shouldn't care particularly to come across Mrs. Waldron's eldest boy in my afternoon's walk. He must be fourteen or fifteen years old by this time-the young villain!
