第51章

"Laziness, I guess,--too much work," said old Cap'n Billy. "What he wants is a wife with money. There ain't a better doctor anywhere. I've heard 't up to Boston, where he got his manifest, they thought everything of him. He's smart enough, but he's lazy, and he always was lazy, and harder'n a nut. He's a curious mixtur'. N'I guess he's been on the lookout for somethin' of this kind ever sence he begun practising among the summer boarders. Guess he's had an eye out."

"They say he's poplar among 'em," observed the storekeeper thoughtfully.

"He's been pooty p'tic'lar, or they have," said Cap'n Jabez.

"Well, most on 'em's merried women," Hackett urged. "It's astonishin' how they do come off and leave their husbands, the whole summer long.

They say they're all out o' health, though."

"I wonder," said old Cap'n Billy, "if them coaliers is goin' to make a settled thing of haulin' inside before they signal a pilot."

"I know one thing," answered Cap'n Jabez, "that if any coalier signals me in the channel, I'll see her in hell first" He slipped his smooth, warm knife into his pocket, and walked out of the store amid a general silence.

"He's consid'ble worked up, about them coaliers," said old Cap'n Billy.

"I don't know as I've heard Jabez swear before--not since he was mate of the Gallatin. He used to swear then, consid'able."

"Them coaliers is enough to make any one swear," said Cap'n George. "If it's any ways fair weather they won't take you outside, and they cut you down from twenty-five dollars to two dollars if they take you inside."

Old Cap'n Billy did not answer before he had breathed awhile, and then, having tried his cigar and found it out, he scraped a match on his coat-sleeve. He looked at the flame while it burned from blue to yellow.

"Well, I guess if anybody's been p'tic'lar, it's been him. There ain't any doubt but what he's got a takin' way with the women. They like him.

He's masterful, and he ain't a fool, and women most gen'ly like a man that ain't a fool. I guess if he 's got his eye on the girl's prop'ty, she'll have to come along. He'd begin by havin' his own way about her answer; he'd hang on till she said Yes, if she did n't say it first-off; and he'd keep on as he'd begun. I guess if he wants her it's a match."

And Cap'n Billy threw his own into the square box of tobacco-stained sawdust under the stove.

Mrs. Maynard fully shared the opinion which rocked Dr. Mulbridge's defeat with a belief in his invincible will. When it became necessary, in the course of events which made Grace and Libby resolve upon a short engagement, to tell her that they were going to be married, she expressed a frank astonishment. "Walter Libby!" she cried. "Well, I am surprised.

When I was talking to you the other day about getting married, of course I supposed it was going to be Dr. Mulbridge. I did n't want you to marry him, but I thought you were going to."

"And why," demanded Grace, with mounting sensation, "did you think that?"

"Oh, I thought you would have to."

"Have to?"

"Oh, you have such a weak will. Or I always thought you had. But perhaps it's only a weak will with other women. I don't know! But Walter Libby! I knew he was perfectly gone upon you, and I told you so at the beginning; but I never dreamt of your caring for him. Why, it seems too ridiculous."

"Indeed! I'm glad that it amuses you."

"Oh no, you're not, Grace. But you know what I mean. He seems so much younger."

"Younger? He's half a year older than I am."

"I did n't say he was younger. But you're so very grave and he's so very light. Well, I always told Walter Libby I should get him a wife, but you were the last person I should have thought of. What's going to become of all your high purposes? You can't do anything with them when you're married! But you won't have any occasion for them, that's one comfort."

"It's not my idea of marriage that any high purpose will be lost in it."

"Oh, it is n't anybody's, before they get married. I had such high purposes I couldn't rest. I felt like hiring a hall, as George says, all the time. Walter Libby is n't going to let you practise, is he? You mustn't let him! I know he'd be willing to do anything you said, but a husband ought to be something more than a mere & Co."

Grace laughed at the impudent cynicism of all this, for she was too happy to be vexed with any one just then. "I'm, glad you've come to think so well of husbands' rights at last, Louise," she said.

Mrs. Maynard took the little puncture in good part. "Oh, yes, George and I have had a good deal of light let in on us. I don't suppose my character was much changed outwardly in my sickness," she suggested.

"It was not," answered Grace warmly. "It was intensified, that was all."

Mrs. Maynard laughed in her turn, with real enjoyment of the conception.