"Hush!" said she quickly, for she knew that I had heard. She lifted a hand impulsively toward his mouth: he caught her hand and looked as though he would have held it; she drew it away, blushing sweetly, and sighed, as she had sighed at Notely.
Vesty saw that, as they entered; saw Notely enter with his easy, unobservant swagger, lest the unexpected visit of this fashionable company should embarrass her. He walked across the room, humming an air, to his old violin.
He touched a strain or two. "Do you remember, Vesty," he said airily, drawing nearer, "this?--and this? You have such a beautiful little boy, Vesty! I am so glad!--so glad! And this?--do you remember?" He played as though he could play away the pallor from that tender face upon the pillows; the pitiful, fine little blue sack added to it. I had left the dust-pan loaded with its spoils, the ragged handle, as I now perceived, not quite hidden behind the door: it caught on to the skirts of the brilliant lady with the eye-glasses, and went trailing loudly after her along the floor. As I stooped down to detach it, sheltered behind those fine draperies, I gave Vesty such a side glance that a smile and color came over her face in spite of herself.
"Such power of attraction!" said Notely, turning to the lady his laughing eyes, with that unconscious pathos which a lovely woman never failed to discover in them; "even the dust-pans"--he swept the strings of the violin--"even the dust-pans become attached to you."
"On the contrary," said she, giving him a sharp glance which he relished from her very bright though near-sighted eyes; "it is not often that I have become attached to anything so useful."
The bride, with her attendant brave, had gone up to Uncle Benny and the baby.
"Let me take him," she said, holding up her beautiful arms.
Uncle Benny smiled at her, half remembering her--it was an old joke, his becoming engaged to every pretty woman he met--but shook his head.
"It 's a particular trust," he said, in his very soft, sweet voice; "from Jesus Christ and mother. What if somebody should drop him, or hurt him? I have to be very careful, for it 's a trust.
he suddenly broke into the song again in a loud and perfectly unembarrassed tone: