PAGE 12
Far Above Rubies
by
“Thank you, Annie!” he cried. “I never should have thought you could hit so hard. But, indeed, I beg your pardon. I forgot myself and you too when I behaved so badly. But I’m not sorry, father, after all, for that box on the ear has got me over a difficult task, and compelled me to speak out at once what has been long in my mind, but which I had not the courage to say. Annie,” he went on, turning to her, and standing humbly before her, “I have long loved you; if you will do me the honor to marry me, I am yours the moment you say so.”
But Annie’s surprise and the hasty act she had committed in the first impulse of defense had so reacted upon her in a white dismay that she stood before him speechless and almost ready to drop. Awakening from what was fast growing a mere dream of offense to the assured consciousness of another offense almost as flagrant, she stared as if she had suddenly opened her eyes on a whole Walpurgisnacht of demons and witches, while Hector, recovering from his astonishment to the lively delight of having something to pretend at least to forgive Annie, and yielding to sudden Celtic impulse, knelt at her feet, seized her hand, which she had no power to withdraw from him, covered it with eager kisses and placed it on his head. Little more would have made him cast himself prone before her, lift her foot, and place it on his neck.
But his father brought a little of his common sense to the rescue.
“Tut, Hector!” he said; “give the lass time to come to her senses. Would you woo her like a raving maniac? I don’t, indeed, wonder, after what you heard her tell me, that you should have taken such a sudden fancy to her; but–“
“Father,” interrupted Hector, “it is no fancy–least of all a sudden one! I fell in love with Annie the very first time I saw her waiting at table. It is true I did not understand what had befallen me for some time; but I do, and I did from the first, and now forever I shall both love and worship Annie!”
“Mr. Hector,” said Annie, “it was too bad of you to listen. I did not know anyone was there but your father. You were never intended to hear; and I did not think you would have done such a dishonorable thing. It was not like you, Mr. Hector!”
How was I to know you had secrets with my father, Annie? Dishonorable or not, the thing is done, and I am glad of it–especially to have heard what you had no intention of telling me.”
“I could not have believed it of you, Mr. Hector!” persisted Annie.
“But, now that I think of it,” suggested Mr. Macintosh, “may not your mother think she has something to say in the matter between you?”
This was a thought already dawning upon her that terrified Annie; she knew, indeed, perfectly how his mother would regard Hector’s proposal, and she dared not refer the matter to her decision.
“I must be out of the house first, Mr. Hector,” she said–and I think she meant–“before I confess my love.”
The impression Annie had made upon her master may be judged from the fact that he rose and went, leaving his son and the parlor-maid together.
What then passed between them I cannot narrate precisely. Overwhelmed by Hector’s avowal, and quite unprepared as she had been for it, it was yet no unwelcome news to Annie. Indeed, the moment he addressed her, she knew in her heart that she had been loving him for a long time, though never acknowledging to herself the fact. Such must often be the case between two whom God has made for each other. And although he were a bold man who said that marriages were made in heaven, he were a bolder who denied that love at first sight was never there decreed. For where God has fitted persons for each other, what can they do but fall mutually in love? Who will then dare to say he did not decree that result? As to what may follow after from their own behavior, I would be as far from saying that was not decreed as from saying the conduct itself was decreed. Surely there shall be room left, even in the counsels of God, for as much liberty as belongs to our being made in his image–free like him to choose the good and refuse the evil! He who has chosen the good remains in the law of liberty, free to choose right again. He who always chooses the right, will at length be free to choose like God himself, for then shall his will itself be free. Freedom to choose and freedom of the will are two different conditions.