“But why should she not come? Surely she will if she has promised, and knows that you work for her,” said Brooke, insensibly adopting his pronunciation and speaking with ready confidence in the faith of woman born of her own temperament.
“She has not promised it,” he faltered, looking down at the tulips and again pulling his hat betwixt himself and his young questioner, as if he feared that if she saw his eyes she might penetrate too far into his innermost feelings.
“At least she believes that you care?” persisted Brooke, too direct and sympathetic to realize at once that she might be probing a wound.
“I once dared to think so, but since I have come away, the word has travelled that perhaps her liking may be for another.”
“Why, doesn’t she know her own mind?” said Brooke, half to herself, all at once becoming the self-appointed champion of her farmer-on-shares, and not realizing until after the words had left her lips that she was herself too young a woman to be a safe adviser to so young a man, and she blushed hotly.
Turning to the flowers to aid her in an unforeseen situation by which she found herself much moved, she spied the great clump of white bridal roses, now putting out green shoots, that had spread from a single bush almost to a hedge, and which Miss Keith had pointed out in its winter leafless state as a much-cherished family possession. “Cut a root from this with your knife, carefully, for its thorns are long and sharp, and plant it by your porch, for the saying is that it brings luck to new homes,” she said quickly. As she watched him she thought of the verses in her letter, and all unconsciously repeated them half aloud, “‘Then mine at worst is everlasting hope—’” but a sharp exclamation from the man, who with back toward her was tugging at the rose root, stopped her; his hand had slipped, and the sharp thorn pierced his thumb to the bone.
It was the pieman’s day, and promptly at noon his cart turned into the barnyard. Mrs. Lawton, as well as Brooke, had come to look forward to the break made by his visits, for embodied cheerfulness must always be a welcome guest. This time, however, he was bustling with importance, and laid a pink envelope, with an embossed violet in the place of a seal, upon Brooke’s lap as she sat on the porch step waiting for him to settle and unfold his budget.