The General got himself
hurriedly to his feet; the shade passed from his brow. The group came
close; he stepped out, and Isabel, meeting him, laid her two hands in
his, while the halting cluster ceased their song suspensively on a line
that pledged loves and friendships too ethereal to clash.
"Isabel,"--he turned up a broadened palm,--"here's my amen to that line;
where's yours?"
With blushing alacrity she laid her hand on his.
"Arthur!" he called, and the lively lover added his to the two. "Now,
Ruth!"
"Father!" laughed the daughter, "isn't this rather youngish?" But she
laid her hand promptly upon Arthur's, and the lines of the General's
face deepened playfully, and Mrs. Morris's dimple did the same, as
Godfrey thrust his hand in upon Ruth's, unasked. The matron laughed very
tenderly on the key of O while she added her hand, and received
Leonard's heavy palm above it. Then Arthur clapped a second hand upon
Leonard's, and Leonard was about to lay a second quietly upon Arthur's,
when Isabel, rose-red from brow to throat, gayly broke the heap and
embraced Ruth.
"Well, honey-girlie," said Mrs. Morris, as she and Isabel reentered
their cottage, "wasn't it sweet of them all, that 'laying on of hands,'
as Arthur called it?"
"Yes," replied the Southern girl, starting up the cramped old New
England stairway to her room. "It was child's play, but it was very
sweet of them, and especially of the General.
Pages:
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36