Apperthwaite's back porch was opened and Miss Apperthwaite, bearing a
saucer of milk, issued therefrom, followed, hastily, by a very white,
fat cat, with a pink ribbon round its neck, a vibrant nose, and fixed,
voracious eyes uplifted to the saucer. The lady and her cat offered to
view a group as pretty as a popular painting; it was even improved when,
stooping, Miss Apperthwaite set the saucer upon the ground, and,
continuing in that posture, stroked the cat. To bend so far is a test of
a woman's grace, I have observed.
She turned her face toward me and smiled. "I'm almost at the age, you
see."
"What age?" I asked, stupidly enough.
"When we take to cats," she said, rising. "Spinsterhood" we like to call
it. 'Single-blessedness!'"
"That is your kind heart. You decline to make one of us happy to the
despair of all the rest."
She laughed at this, though with no very genuine mirth, I marked, and
let my 1830 attempt at gallantry pass without other retort.
"You seemed interested in the old place yonder." She indicated Mr.
Beasley's house with a nod.
"Oh, I understood my blunder," I said, quickly. "I wish I had known the
subject was embarrassing or unpleasant to Mr. Dowden."
"What made you think that?"
"Surely," I said, "you saw how pointedly he cut me off."
"Yes," she returned, thoughtfully. "He rather did; it's true. At least,
I see how you got that impression." She seemed to muse upon this,
letting her eyes fall; then, raising them, allowed her far-away gaze to
rest upon the house beyond the fence, and said, "It IS an interesting
old place.
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