Part 12 (1/2)

”Has he told _you_?” echoed the old gentleman. Harley told. Then Mr.

Bowdoin turned and bolted up the street after Jamie.

”Old fellow, why don't you have a vacation,--just a few days? The bank can spare you, and you need rest.” His hand was on the old clerk's shoulder.

”Master Harley wull ha' told ye? But I'm na one to neglect me affairs,” said Jamie.

”Nonsense, nonsense. When is she coming?”

Jamie told him.

”Why don't you take the one-forty and meet her at Worcester? She may have to go back to-morrow.”

Jamie started. It was clear he had not thought of this. As they entered the bank, Mr. Bowdoin cried out to Stanchion, the cas.h.i.+er, ”I want to borrow McMurtagh for the day, on business of my own.”

”Certainly, sir,” said Mr. Stanchion.

Jamie went.

There is no happiness so great as happiness to come, for then it has not begun to go. If the streets of the celestial city are as bright to Jamie as those of Boston were that day, he should have hope of heaven.

It was yet two hours before his train went, but he had no thought of food. He pa.s.sed a florist's; then turned and went in, blus.h.i.+ng, to buy a bunch of roses. He was not anxious for the time to come, such pleasure lay in waiting. When at last the train started, the distance to Worcester never seemed so short. He was to come back over it with her!

In the car he got some water for his roses, but dared not smell of them lest their fragrance should be diminished. After reaching Worcester, he had half an hour to wait; then the New York train came trundling in. As the cars rolled by he strained his old eyes to each window; the day was hot, and at an opened one Jamie saw the face of his Mercedes.

X.

The next morning, old Mr. James Bowdoin got up even earlier than usual, with an undefined sense of pleasure. As was his wont, he walked across the street to sit half an hour before breakfast in the Common.

The old crossing-sweeper was already there, to receive his penny; and the orange-woman, expectant, sold her apex orange to him for a silver thripenny bit as his before-breakfast while awaiting the more dignified cunctation of his auguster spouse.

The old gentleman's mind was running on McMurtagh; and a robuster grin than usual encouraged even others than his chartered pensioners to come up to him for largess. Mr. Bowdoin's eyes wandered from the orange-woman to the telescope-man, and thence to an old elm with one gaunt dead limb that stretched out over the dawn. It was very pleasant that summer morning, and he felt no hurry to go in to breakfast.

Love was the best thing in the world; then why did it make the misery of it? How irradiated old Jamie's face had been the day before! Yet Jamie would never have gone to meet her at Worcester, had he not given him the hint. Dear, dear, what could be done for St. Clair, as he called himself? Mr. Bowdoin half suspected there had been trouble at the bank. Mercedes such a pretty creature, too! Only, Abby really never would do for her what she might have done. Why were women so impatient of each other? Old Mr. Bowdoin felt vaguely that it was they who were responsible for the social platform; and he looked at his watch.

Heavens! five minutes past eight! Mr. Bowdoin got up hurriedly, and, nodding to the orange-woman, shuffled into his house. But it was too late; Mrs. Bowdoin sat rigid behind the coffee-urn. Harley looked up with a twinkle in his eye.

”James, I should think, at your time of life, you'd stop rambling over the Common before breakfast,--in carpet slippers, too,--when you know I've been up so late the night before at a meeting in behalf of”--

A sudden twinkle flashed over the old gentleman's rosy face; then he became solemn, preternaturally solemn. Harley caught the expression and listened intently. Mrs. Bowdoin, pouring out cream as if it were coals of fire on his head, was not looking at him.

”There!” gasped old Mr. Bowdoin, dropping heavily into a chair.

”Always said it would happen. I feel faint!”

”James?” said Mrs. Bowdoin.

”Always said it would happen--and there's your cousin, Wendell Phillips, out on the Common, hanging stark on the limb of an elm-tree.”

”_James!_”