“If you please, sir, the bill is waiting.”
The Major started at the sound of the sweet voice as if he had been clapped on the shoulder.
“Oh, ah! I beg your pardon. Let me see—six linen shirts—five dollars each—thirty dollars—all right.” And the Major looked up from the bill into her face. He felt a delight he could not account for in gazing upon its sweet beauty. She was confused by his ardent look, and became still more beautiful from her sweet confusion. With instinctive delicacy he withdrew his gaze, and a sigh, the first he had felt for twenty years, escaped him. A gentle sadness at the same time overspread his fine features. Again he looked into her face, but with an expression that she did not shrink from, and said kindly, touchingly,
“So then, sweet child, you are an orphan.”
“Sir, I have another errand to go—if you will please pay the bill for my mistress.”
“Oh, ah! yes, the bill. Thirty dollars. Here is a check for the amount.”
“I thank you, sir,” said Mary, curtseying with a grace that charmed him, and turning to leave.
“Stay, Mary—that is, Miss Lee,” said Leslie, following her a step and speaking with amusing hesitation. The linen-draper maiden had, however, reached the door and placed her hand upon the lock. She was evidently alarmed and surprised, and seemed uncertain whether to take the gentleman’s manner as rudeness or as an uncommon degree of civility. She appeared to be a sensible, good natured girl, however, with all her charms, and probably with woman’s ready tact divined the true cause of his singular conduct. Yet with all a woman’s tact she pretended to be blind to the impression her beauty had made upon him. She could not help thinking that he was a very handsome man, if he was an old bachelor, and she felt pleased rather than offended at this evidence of the triumph of beauty. For Mary Lee well knew she had beauty, and what pretty miss of seventeen is ignorant of this possession?
“Stay, if you please, one moment, Miss Lee,” said Leslie.
“But one moment. Are you an apprentice with Miss Phelps, the linen-draper?”
“Yes, sir;” and Mary turned the lock of the door.
The Major laid his hand lightly upon her wrist.
“Excuse me, Miss Lee! One more question!” But the maiden, with a pleasant laugh, threw off his hand and bounded through the open door into the hall. Cato was in waiting.