Part 37

"Then there's more news," he plunged on, when she did not speak--"a letter from Mr. Hinton. I thought maybe you'd like to hear what he had to say."

Guinevere's scissors dropped with a sharp ring on the stepping-stone below, and as they both stooped to get them, their fingers touched. Mr. Opp ardently seized her hand in both of his, but unfortunately he seized her needle as well.

"Oh, I am so sorry!" she said. "Wait, let me do it," and with a compassion which he considered nothing short of divine she extricated the needle, and comforted the wounded member. Mr. Opp would have gladly suffered the fate of a St. Sebastian to have elicited such sympathy.

"Is--is Mr. Hinton better?" she asked, still bending over his hand.

"Hinton?" asked Mr. Opp. "Oh, I forgot; yes. I'll read you what he says. He got his nurse to write this for him.

Dear Opp: The die is cast; I am a has-been. I did not expect anything, so I am not disappointed. The operation was what they called successful. The surgeon, I am told, did a very brilliant stunt; something like taking my eyes out, playing marbles with them, and getting them sewed back again all in three minutes and a half. The result to the patient is of course purely a minor consideration, but it may interest you to know that I can tell a biped from a quadruped, and may in time, by the aid of powerful glasses, be able to distinguish faces.

With these useful and varied accomplishments I have decided to return to the Cove. My modest ambition now is to get out of the way, and the safest plan is to keep out of the current.

You will probably be a Benedick by the time I return. My heartiest congratulations to you and Miss Guinevere. Words cannot thank either of you for what you have done for me. All I can say is that I have tried to be worthy of your friendship.

What's left of me is

Yours,

Willard Hinton."

Mr. Opp avoided looking at her as he folded the sheets and put them back in the envelop. The goal was bright before his eyes, but quicksands dragged at his feet.

"And he will find us married, won't he, Miss Guin-never? You'll be ready just as soon as I and your mother come to a understanding, won't you? Why, it seems more like eleven years than eleven months since you and me saw that sunset on the river! There hasn't been a day since, you might say, that hasn't been occupied with you. All I ask for in the world is just the chance for the rest of my life of trying to make you happy. You believe that, don't you, Miss Guin-never?"

"Yes," she said miserably, gazing out at the little arbor Hinton had made for her beneath the trees.

"Well, I'll stop by this evening after the meeting, if it ain't too late," said Mr. Opp. "You'll--you'll be--glad if everything culminates satisfactory, won't you?"

"I'm glad of everything good that comes to you," said Guinevere so earnestly that Mr. Opp, who had lived on a diet of crumbs all his life, looked at her gratefully, and went back to the office assuring himself that all would be well.

The visit of Mr. Mathews, while eagerly anticipated, could not have fallen on a less auspicious day. Aunt Tish, the arbiter of the Opp household, had been planning for weeks to make a visit to Coreyville, and the occasion of an opportune funeral furnished an immediate excuse.

"No, sir, Mr. D., I can't put hit off till to-morrow," she declared in answer to Mr. Opp's request that she stay with Miss Kippy until after the stock-holders' meeting. "I's 'bleeged to go on dat night boat. De funeral teks place at ten o'clock in de mawnin', an' I's gwine be dar ef I has to swim de ribber."

"Was he a particular friend, the one that died?" asked Mr. Opp.

"Friend? Bunk Bivens? Dat onery, good-fer-nothin' ole half-strainer? Naw, sir; he ain't no friend ob mine."

"Well, what makes you so pressing and particular about attending his funeral?" asked Mr. Opp.

"'Ca'se I 'spise him so. I been hating dat nigger fer pretty nigh forty year, an' I ain't gwine lose dis chanst ob seein' him buried."

"But, Aunt Tish," persisted Mr. Opp, impatiently, "I've got a very important and critical meeting this afternoon. The business under consideration may be wound up in the matter of a few minutes, and then, again, it may prolong itself into several consecutive hours. You'll have to stay with Kippy till I get home."

The old woman looked at him strangely. "See dis heah hole in my haid, honey? 'Member how you and Ben uster ast Aunt Tish what mek hit? Dat nigger Bunk Bivens mek hit. He was a roustabout on de ribber, an' him an' yer paw fell out, an' one night when you was a baby he follow yer paw up here, an' me an' him had hit out."

"But where was my father?" asked Mr. Opp.

"Dey was 'sputin' right heah in dis heah kitchen where we's standin' at, an' dat mean, bow-laigged nigger didn't have no better manners den to 'spute wif a gentleman dat was full. An' pore Miss she run in so skeered an' white an' she say, 'Aunt Tish, don't let him hurt him; he don't know what he's sayin',' she baig, an' I tell her to keep yer paw outen de way an' I tek keer ob Bunk."

"And did he fight you?" asked Mr. Opp, indignantly.

"Naw, sir; I fit him. We put nigh tore up de floor ob de kitchen. Den he bust my haid open wif de poker, an' looks lak I been losing my knowledge ever sence. From dat day I 'low I's gwine to git even if it took me till I died, an' now dat spiteful old devil done died fust. But I's gwine see him buried. I want to see 'em nail him up in a box and th'ow dirt on him."