Yes, Mrs. Plume was gone now for good and all, her devoted, yet
sore-hearted major with her, and Wren was sufficiently recovered to be
up and taking the air on his veranda, where Sanders sometimes stopped
to see him, and "pass the time of day," but cut his visits short and
spoke of everything but what was uppermost in his mind, because his
better half persuaded him that only ill would come from preaching.
Then, late one wonderful day, the interesting invalid, Mr. Neil
Blakely himself, was "paraded" upon the piazza in the Sanders's
special reclining-chair, and Kate and Mrs. Sanders beamed, while
nearly all society at the post came and purred and congratulated and
took sidelong glances up the row to where Angela but a while before
was reading to her grim old father, but where the father now read
alone, for Angela had gone, as was her custom at the hour, to her own
little room, and thither did Janet conceive it her duty to follow,
and there to investigate.
"It won't be long now before that young man will be hobbling around
the post, I suppose. How do you expect to avoid him?" said the elder
maiden, looking with uncompromising austerity at her niece. Angela as
before had just shaken loose her wealth of billowy tresses and was
carefully brushing them. She did not turn from the contemplation of
her double in the mirror before her; she did not hesitate in her
reply. It was brief, calm, and to the point.
"I shall not avoid him."
"Angela! And after all I--your father and I--have told you!" And Aunt
Janet began to bristle.
"Two-thirds of what you told me, Aunt Janet, proved to be without
foundation. Now I doubt--the rest of it." And Aunt Janet saw the big
eyes beginning to fill; saw the twitching at the corners of the soft,
sensitive lips; saw the trembling of the slender, white hand, and the
ominous tapping of the slender, shapely foot, but there wasn't a
symptom of fear or flinching. The blood of the Wrens was up for
battle. The child was a woman grown. The day of revolt had come at
last.
"Angela Wr-r-ren!" rolled Aunt Janet. "D'you mean you're going to
see him?--speak to him?"
"I'm going to see him and--thank him, Aunt Janet." And now the girl
had turned and faced the astounded woman at the door. "You may spare
yourself any words upon the subject."
The captain was seated in loneliness and mental perturbation just
where Angela had left him, but no longer pretending to read. His back
was toward the southern end of the row. He had not even seen the cause
of the impromptu reception at the Sanders's. He read what was taking
place when Angela began to lose her voice, to stumble over her words;
and, peering at her under his bushy eyebrows, he saw that the face he
loved was flushing, that her young bosom was swiftly rising and
falling, the beautiful brown eyes wandering from the page. Even before
the glad voices from below came ringing to his ears, he read in his
daughter's face the tumult in her guileless heart, and then she
suddenly caught herself and hurried back to the words that seemed
swimming in space before her. But the effort was vain. Rising quickly,
and with brave effort steadying her voice, she said, "I'll run and
dress now, father, dear," and was gone, leaving him to face the
problem thrust upon him. Had he known that Janet, too, had heard from
the covert of the screened and shaded window of the little parlor, and
then that she had followed, he would have shouted for his German
"striker" and sent a mandate to his sister that she could not fail to
understand. He did not know that she had been with Angela until he
heard her footstep and saw her face at the hall doorway. She had not
even to roll her r's before the story was told.