“Now, mother!” expostulated Mary North, chair in hand, and breathless, “you might have broken your limb! Here, take my arm.”
Meekly, after her moment of freedom, the little lady put her hand on that gaunt arm, and tripped up the path and into the house, where, alas! Augusta Price lost sight of them. Yet even she, with all her disapproval of strong-minded ladies, must have admired the tenderness of the man-o'-war's man. Miss North put her mother into a big chair, and hurried to bring a dish of curds.
With a sigh the little old lady ate the curds, looking about her with curious eyes. “Why, we're right across the street from the old Price house!” she said.
“Did you know them, mother?” demanded Miss North.
“Dear me, yes,” said Mrs. North, twinkling; “why, I'd forgotten all about it, but the eldest boy--Now, what was his name? Al--something. Alfred,--Albert; no, Alfred. He was a beau of mine.”
“Mother! I don't think it's refined to use such a word.”
“Well, he wanted me to elope with him,” Mrs. North said, gayly; “if that isn't being a beau, I don't know what is. I haven't thought of it for years.”
“If you've finished your curds you must lie down,” said Miss North.
“Who is that stout old gentleman going into the Price house?” Mrs. North said, lingering at the window.
“Oh, that's your Alfred Price,” her daughter answered; and added that she hoped her mother would be pleased with the house. “We have boarded so long, I think you'll enjoy a home of your own.”
“Indeed I shall!” cried Mrs. North, her eyes snapping with delight. “Mary, I'll wash the breakfast dishes, as my mother used to do!”
“Oh no,” Mary North protested; “it would tire you. I mean to take every care from your mind.”
“But,” Mrs. North pleaded, “you have so much to do; and--”
“Never mind about me,” said the daughter, earnestly; “you are my first consideration.”
“I know it, my dear,” said Mrs. North, meekly. And when Old Chester came to make its call, one of the first things she said was that her Mary was such a good daughter. Miss North, her anxious face red with determination, bore out the assertion by constantly interrupting the conversation to bring a footstool, or shut a window, or put a shawl over her mother's knees. “My mother's limb troubles her,” she explained to visitors (in point of modesty, Mary North did not leave her mother a leg to stand on); then she added, breathlessly, with her tremulous smile, that she wished they would please not talk too much. “Conversation tires her,” she explained. At which the little, pretty old lady opened and closed her hands, and protested that she was not tired at all. But the callers departed. As the door closed behind them, Mrs. North was ready to cry.