第204章

"Ah, I felt sure of that. My heart told me so. When you went off, that dreadful night, leaving me to anguish and suspense, I thought I should have died. I never have had, so to say, a happy moment until this, when I meet you again."

"Don't be a fool, Afy!" was Richard's gallant rejoinder, borrowing the favorite reproach of Miss Carlyle. "I was young and green once; you don't suppose I have remained so. We will drop the past, if you please. How is Mr. Jiffin?"

"Oh, the wretch!" shrieked Afy. "Is it possible that you can have fallen into the popular scandal that I have anything to say to /him/?

You know I'd never demean myself to it. That's West Lynne all over!

Nothing but inventions in it from week's end to week's end. A man who sells cheese! Who cuts up bacon! Well, I am surprised at you, Mr. Richard!"

"I have been thinking what luck you were in to get him," said Richard, with composure. "But it is your business not mine."

"Could /you/ bear to see me stooping to him?" returned Afy, dropping her voice to the most insinuating whisper.

"Look you, Afy. What ridiculous folly you are nursing in your head I don't trouble myself to guess, but, the sooner you get it out again the better. I was an idiot once, I don't deny it; but you cured me of that, and cured me with a vengeance. You must pardon me for intimating that from henceforth we are strangers; in the street as elsewhere. I have resumed my own standing again, which I periled when I ran after you."

Afy turned faint. "How can you speak those cruel words?" gasped she.

"You have called them forth. I was told yesterday that Afy Hallijohn, dressed up to a caricature, was looking after me again. It won't do, Afy."

"Oh-o-o-oh!" sobbed Afy, growing hysterical, "and is this to be all my recompense for the years I have spent pining after you, keeping single for your sake!"

"Recompense! Oh, if you want that, I'll get my mother to give Jiffin her custom." And with a ringing laugh, which, though it had nothing of malice in it, showed Afy that he took her reproach for what it was worth, Richard turned in at his own gate.

It was a deathblow to Afy's vanity. The worst it had ever received; and she took a few minutes to compose herself, and smooth her ruffled feathers. Then she turned and sailed back toward Mr. Jiffin's, her turban up in the skies and the plume de coq tossing to the admiration of all beholders, especially of Miss Carlyle, who had the gratification of surveying her from her window. Arrived at Mr. Jiffin's, she was taken ill exactly opposite his door, and staggered into the shop in a most exhausted state.

Round the counter flew Mr. Jiffin, leaving the shopman staring behind it. What /was/ the matter? What /could/ he do for her?

"Faint--heat of the sun--walked too fast--allowed to sit down for five minutes!" gasped Afy, in disjointed sentences.

Mr. Jiffin tenderly conducted her through the shop to his parlor. Afy cast half an eye round, saw how comfortable were its arrangements, and her symptoms of faintness increased. Gasps and hysterical sobs came forth together. Mr. Jiffin was as one upon spikes.

"She'd recover better there than in the public shop--if she'd only excuse his bringing her in, and consent to stop for a few minutes. No harm could come to her, and West Lynne could never say it. He'd stand at the far end of the room, right away from her; he'd prop open the two doors and the windows; he'd call in the maid--anything she thought right. Should he get her a glass of wine?"

Afy declined the wine by a gesture, and sat fanning herself. Mr. Jiffin looking on from a respectful distance. Gradually she grew composed--grew herself again. As she gained courage, Mr. Jiffin lost it, and he ventured upon some faint words of reproach, of him.

Afy burst into a laugh. "Did I not do it well?" she exclaimed. "I thought I'd play off a joke upon you, so I came out this afternoon and did it."

Mr. Jiffin clasped his hands. "/Was/ it a joke/" he returned, trembling with agitation, uncertain whether he was in paradise or not.

"Are you still ready to let me call you mine?"

"Of course it was a joke," said Afy. "What a soft you must have been, Mr. Jiffin, not to see through it! When young ladies engage themselves to be married, you can't suppose they run back from it, close upon the wedding-day?"

"Oh, Miss Afy!" And the poor little man actually burst into delicious tears, as he caught hold of Afy's hand and kissed it.

"A great green donkey!" thought Afy to herself, bending on him, however the sweetest smile.

Rather. But Mr. Jiffin is not the only great donkey in the world.

Richard Hare, meanwhile, had entered his mother's presence. She was sitting at the open window, the justice opposite to her, in an invalid chair, basking in the air and the sun. This last attack of the justice's had affected the mind more than the body. He was brought down to the sitting-room that day for the first time; but, of his mind, there was little hope. It was in a state of half imbecility; the most wonderful characteristic being, that all its selfwill, its surliness had gone. Almost as a little child in tractability, was Justice Hare.