The Attic Guest: A Novel — Edition Insights

Agnes was finished with the paper.

I really do not know how the argument concluded, for at this juncture a very sable face appeared suddenly at the door and a liquid voice announced: "Please, Miss Helen, Misteh Slocum's waitin' fo' yeh in de parluh."

I was ready for the intimation, for I had heard the old brass knocker muttering a minute or two before--and I was just at the age when I knew the different knocks of different gallants. And not a few of these latter were wont to lift that frowning brass face on our front door and let it fall again--the wonderful thing about it was, that the oftener they came the more gentle grew the knock--but this is the way with all knockers at all Southern homes that shelter comely maidens. And I am neither modest enough nor untruthful enough to deny that I deserved the adjective aforesaid--especially as this story may never see the light till my eyes give it back no more.

"I'm hoping he'll be a minister," I volunteered, as I turned a moment at the door.

"Why?" cried my mother.

"What for?" chimed my Aunt Agnes.

"Well," I answered, "elders pray too long--I went to sleep one night at worship when that elder from Hickory was here at the Synod. And he said I was a devout worshipper, don't you mind, when I kept kneeling after you all got up. I don't think that was very nice for a religious man to say," I averred, tugging at a reluctant glove.

"He wouldn't think so if he saw you now--starting for a dance," suggested my Aunt Agnes. "But you look mighty sweet, honey--though I don't believe you've got enough on for a chilly night like this. Be sure you have something round you when you're coming home."

"Mr. Slocum will see to that," assured Uncle Henry, his expression interpreting his words.

"Hush," said my mother chidingly; "the child doesn't know what you mean." Every word of that evening's conversation is vivid to me yet, as it well might be; and I have often wondered why my mother held such a sanguine view of my simplicity.

I don't remember much about the succeeding frivolities of that April evening. Sometimes I catch again a few fugitive snatches of the melody that inspired the mazy throng; I remember what I wore--it served long years of umbrageous usefulness as a lamp shade after I was through with it; and I think I danced nearly every dance, no foreboding of soberer days chastening the gladness. And I forgot all about the elder question, wondering no more where he might lay his devoted head. But before Mr. Frank Slocum bade me good-night as I disappeared within the heavy oaken door of my uncle's house, he unwittingly recalled the subject.

"You're expecting a visitor to-morrow, aren't you?" he said.

"Oh, yes," I answered, suddenly remembering. "Yes, we're going to have one of the men attending the Presbytery; I think it's to be an elder--and I'm afraid it's him for the attic," I concluded. It was half-past two and I was too tired to bother about grammar.

"I wasn't thinking about the Presbytery," returned Mr. Slocum, and he smiled in the moonlight. "Somebody else is coming, isn't he?"

Whereat I hope I blushed; it was the time for that mystic operation. For I knew he referred to Charlie, dear old Charlie, who made his pious pilgrimage once a month--and I was the shrine.

"Yes, he's coming," I said, toying with the knocker as I spoke.

"You don't seem as jubilant about it as you ought to be," ventured Mr. Frank.

"You don't know how I feel," said I; "maybe I'm jubilant inside."

"Then you shouldn't sigh," pursued my escort.

"I didn't know I sighed--but, even if I did, perhaps sighs are like dreams, and go by contraries," I returned, making the best stand I could. "A maiden's heart is an unknown sea," I affirmed, quoting from some distant poem.

"Besides," Frank went on, disdainful of all poetry, "if you really cared like you ought to, you wouldn't be out so late the night before; you'd be having your beauty sleep right now, just to be lovely when he came--or, at least, to be even lovelier," he amended; for Frank was a Southern gentleman.

"I never had it bad enough to go to bed over it," I admitted; "but he'll be here to-morrow--he'll be here to-morrow," I chanted, as ecstatically as I could. Yet I felt at the time that the words didn't ring much; it was a little like trying to peal a chime on a row of pillows. Then, before I knew it, I yawned, yawned brazenly into the face of the brass knocker on the door.