Paulina's ideas were confused by the compliment, and she was on the point of asking whether step-daughter and daughter-in-law expressed the same relation, but some feeling checked her, and instead of asking she blushed deeply. The good old lady continued her soundings.
'I did not, Lina, expect you to marry Mr. Lovejoy for love.'
'For what then, ma'am, should I marry him?' asked Lina, suspending her housewife labors, and standing before the fire while she tied and untied the string of her little black silk apron.
'Girls often do marry, my child, to get a good home.'
'_Marry_ to get a home, Mrs. Barnard! I would wash, iron, sweep, scrub, beg to get a home, sooner than marry to get one; and, beside, have I not the pleasantest home in the world?--thanks to your bounty and the colonel's.'
Mrs. Barnard sighed, took Lina's fair, chubby hand in hers, stroked and pressed it. At this moment, the colonel, who had, unperceived by either party, been taking his twilight nap on his close-curtained bed in the adjoining bedroom, rose, and drew up to the fire. He had overheard the conversation, and now, to poor Paulina's embarrassment, joined in it.
'I am disappointed, Lina,' he said; 'it is strange it is so difficult to suit you with a husband; you are easily suited with every thing else.'
'There's no telling how soon you may, Lina; I feel myself to be failing daily, and when I am gone, my child, it will be all poor Loyd can do to take care of his mother.'
'Can I not help him? Am I not stronger than Loyd? Would it not be happiness enough to work for Loyd, and Loyd's mother?' thought Paulina; but she hemmed, and coughed, and said nothing.
'It would be a comfort to me,' continued the old man, 'to see you settled in a home of your own before I die.' He paused, but there was no reply. 'I did not say a word when William Strong was after you--I did not like the stock; nor when the young lawyer sent his fine presents--as Loyd said, 'he had more gab than wit;' nor when poor Charles Mosely was, as it were, dying for you, for, though his prospects were fine in Ohio, I felt, and so did Mrs. Barnard, and so did Loyd, as if we could not have you go so far away from us; but now, my child, the case is different. Mr. Lovejoy has one of the best estates in the county; he is none of your flighty, here to-day and gone to-morrow folks, but a substantial, reliable person, and I think, and Loyd said--' Here the brands fell apart; and, while Paulina was breathless to hear what Loyd said, the old colonel rose to adjust them. He had broken the thread, and did not take it up in the right place. 'As I was saying, my child,' he resumed, 'my life is very uncertain, and I think, and Loyd thinks--'