She met Mr. Dimmerly on the stairs, who took the brandy from her,
saying: "That's sensible. We'll rub him down with it, inside and
out, and he'll be all right in the morning. Now you see how blood
tells. Making a parson of him can't change the fact of his coming
from an old family. He has been as brave to-night as the Dimmerlys
were a thousand years ago."
But Lottie was not a bit interested in the millennial Dimmerlys,
and, putting her arms around her uncle's neck in a way that surprised
that ancient fossil, she coaxed:
"Won't you promise me, uncle, that as soon as he is safe you will
come out and let me know?"
"Safe! He's safe now. Who ever heard of even a half-blooded Dimmerly
dying from a mere faint? Old age is the only disease that runs
in our family, my dear. But I will let you know as soon as he
is comfortably asleep. I am going to make my proper parson nephew
almost drunk, for once in his life; and you needn't expect to see
him much before ten o'clock to-morrow."
Lottie, finding her services were not needed in Miss Martell's
room, went down to the kitchen, where she found the half-frozen
oarsman-now rigged out in the dress-coat and white vest of the
colored waiter--and the brave coachman who had put his old sea-craft
to such good use. They were being royally cared for by the cook
and laundress. The poor fellow who out in the boat had thought that
the hearts of even his neighbors were as cold and hard as the ice
that was destroying them had now forgotten his misanthropy, and
was making a supper that, considering the hour, would threaten to
an ordinary mortal more peril than that from which he had escaped.
She drew from him--and especially from the coachman--the narrative
of their thrilling experience, and every moment Hemstead grew more
heroic in her eyes.
"Bless you, miss," said the bluff ex-sailor, his tongue a little
loosened by the whiskey he had taken as an antidote for the cold
and wet, "there's stuff enough in him to make a hundred such as
t'other young gentleman as wouldn't go. Sudden spells, like that
he had t'other night, is all he'll ever be 'stinguished for, I'm
a-thinking. But I ax your pardon, miss."
"I can forgive you anything to-night, my brave fellow," said Lottie,
blushing. "Though you have given Mr. Hemstead so much credit, he will
give you more to-morrow. Take this and get something to remember
this evening by"; and she slipped a twenty-dollar bank-note into
his hand.
"Now bless your sweet eyes!" exclaimed the man, ducking and bobbing
with bewildering rapidity; "it's your kindness that'll make me
remember the evening to my dying day."
"How could you speak so of Mr. De Forrest, when the young leddy
is engaged to him?" said the cook, reproachfully, after Lottie had
gone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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