Ch. 16 - Mustered In - Page 2

embraces people behind doors, sings
opera airs,--very much out of tune by the way,--and conducts himself
more like an infatuated Claude Melnotte, than a respectable
gentleman on the awful verge of matrimony. Nothing can surprise me
now: I'm prepared for any thing, even the sight of my Quakerish
lover dancing a jig."

"Just what I've been longing to do! Come and take a turn: it will do
you good;" and, to Christie's utter amazement, David caught her
round the waist and waltzed her down the boarded walk with a speed
and skill that caused less havoc among the flower-pots than one
would imagine, and seemed to delight the plants, who rustled and
nodded as if applauding the dance of the finest double flower that
had ever blossomed in their midst.

"I can't help it, Christie," he said, when he had landed her
breathless and laughing at the other end. "I feel like a boy out of
school, or rather a man out of prison, and must enjoy my liberty in
some way. I'm not a talker, you know; and, as the laws of
gravitation forbid my soaring aloft anywhere, I can only express my
joyfully uplifted state of mind by 'prancing,' as you call it. Never
mind dignity: let's be happy, and by and by I'll sober down."

"I don't want you to; I love to see you so young and happy, only you
are not the old David, and I've got to get acquainted with the new
one."

"I hope you'll like him better than the frost-bitten 'old David' you
first knew and were kind enough to love. Mother says I've gone back
to the time before we lost Letty, and I sometimes feel as if I had.
In that case you will find me a proud, impetuous, ambitious fellow,
Christie, and how will that suit?"

"Excellently; I like pride of your sort; impetuosity becomes you,
for you have learned to control it if need be; and the ambition is
best of all. I always wondered at your want of it, and longed to
stir you up; for you did not seem the sort of man to be contented
with mere creature comforts when there are so many fine things men
may do. What shall you choose, Davy?"

"I shall wait for time to show. The sap is all astir in me, and I'm
ready for my chance. I don't know what it is, but I feel very sure
that some work will be given me into which I can put my whole heart
and soul and strength. I spoilt my first chance; but I know I shall
have another, and, whatever it is, I am ready to do my best, and
live or die for it as God wills."

"So am I," answered Christie, with a voice as earnest and a face as
full of hopeful resolution as his own.

Then they went back to their work, little dreaming as they tied
roses and twined smilax wreaths, how near that other