What
thinking forward this troubled couple ventured took the form of a
slender hope which neither of them could have borne to hear put in
words, and yet they had talked it over, day after day, from the very
hour when they heard Sheridan was to build his New House next door.
For--so quickly does any ideal of human behavior become an antique
--their youth was of the innocent old days, so dead! of "breeding"
and "gentility," and no craft had been more straitly trained upon
them than that of talking about things without mentioning them.
Herein was marked the most vital difference between Mr. and Mrs.
Vertrees and their big new neighbor. Sheridan, though his youth
was of the same epoch, knew nothing of such matters. He had been
chopping wood for the morning fire in the country grocery while they
were still dancing.
It was after one o'clock when Mrs. Vertrees heard steps and the
delicate clinking of the key in the lock, and then, with the opening
of the door, Mary's laugh, and "Yes--if you aren't afraid--to-morrow!"
The door closed, and she rushed up-stairs, bringing with her a breath
of cold and bracing air into her mother's room. "Yes," she said,
before Mrs.
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