When he awoke it was almost noon. He remembered the missed appointment of
the day before, and the journey to Washington which he had planned for
that day. With a start of horror he looked at his watch and found he had
but a few hours in which to try to make up for the remissness of yesterday
before the evening coach left for Philadelphia. It was as if some guardian
angel had met his first waking thoughts with business that could not be
delayed and so kept him from going over the painful events of the day
before. He arose and hastened out into the world once more.
Late in the afternoon he found the man he was to have met the day before,
and succeeded in convincing him that he ought to help the new enterprise.
He was standing on the corner saying the last few words as the two
separated, when Kate drove by in a friend’s carriage, surrounded by
parcels. She had been on a shopping tour spending the money that David had
given her, for silks and laces and jewelry, and now she was returning in
high glee with her booty. The carriage passed quite near to David who
stood with his back to the street, and she could see his animated face as
he smiled at the other man, a fine looking man who looked as if he might
be some one of note. The momentary glance did not show the haggard look of
David’s face nor the lines that his vigil of the night before had traced
under his eyes, and Kate was angered to see him so unconcerned and
forgetful of his pain of yesterday. Her face darkened with spite, and she
resolved to make him suffer yet, and to the utmost, for the sin of
forgetting her.
But David was in the way of duty, and he did not see her, for his guardian
angel was hovering close at hand.
As the Fall wore on and the winter set in Harry’s letters became less
frequent and less intimate. Hannah was troubled, and after consultation
with her grandmother, to which Miranda listened at the latch hole, duly
reporting quotations to her adored Mrs. Spafford, Hannah decided upon an
immediate trip to the metropolis.
“Hannah’s gone to New York to find out what’s become of that nimshi Harry
Temple. She thought she had him fast, an’ she’s been holdin’ him over poor
Lemuel Skinner’s head like thet there sword hangin’ by a hair I heard the
minister tell about last Sunday, till Lemuel, he don’t know but every
minute’s gone’ll be his last. You mark my words, she’ll hev to take poor
Lem after all, an’ be glad she’s got him, too,—and she’s none too good for
him neither. He’s ben faithful to her ever since she wore pantalets, an’
she’s ben keepin’ him off’n on an’ hopin’ an’ tryin’ fer somebody bigger.
It would jes’ serve her right ef she’d get that fool of a Harry Temple,
but she won’t. He’s too sharp for that ef he _is_ a fool. He don’t want to
tie himself up to no woman’s aprun strings. He rather dandle about after
’em all an’ say pretty things, an’ keep his earnin’s fer himself.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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