Then as Mrs. Bradford folded her hands over her work, and gazed through
the plants and window, at some far-away thought, I felt like a detective,
spying upon her, and hastily knocked again.
This time she heard at once, and coming quickly to the door, admitted
me, with a cordial smile and a hearty grasp of the hand that reminded
me of her son, and was totally unlike the clammy and noncommittal touch
of so many of the country folk, bred evidently of their general habit
of caution.
"You are Mrs. Evan, the Doctor's daughter. I know your father well,
though I have never met you face to face since you were a little girl."
Then the conversation drifted easily along to Miss Lavinia, and my
meeting with Horace, his professorship, the prospect of his being at home
all summer, and to the different changes in the community, especially
that wrought by the colony at the Bluffs, which were really the halfway
mark between Oaklands and Pine Ridge.
Mrs. Bradford saw the purely commercial and cheerful side of the matter;
as yet, few of the new places were well equipped with gardens,--it had
opened a good market for the farmers on the Ridge, and they were no
longer obliged to take their eggs, fruit, poultry, and butter into town.
In spite of a certain reticence, she was eager to know the names of all
the newcomers; but when I mentioned Mrs. Latham, saying that she was the
mother of Sylvia, one of her son's pupils, and described the beauty of
their place, I thought that she gave a little start, and that I heard her
speak the initials S.
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