blush something about "Miss Nellie."
"Ah, Nellie. She, too, is at her tasks--trimming her lamp--you know,
the parable of the wise virgins," continued Father Wynn hastily,
fearing that the convert might take the illustration literally. "There,
there--good-by. Keep in the right path." And with a parting shove he
dismissed Charley and entered his own house.
That "wise virgin," Nellie, had evidently finished with the lamp, and
was now going out to meet the bridegroom, as she was fully dressed and
gloved, and had a pink parasol in her hand, as her father entered the
sitting-room. His bluff heartiness seemed to fade away as he removed
his soft, broad-brimmed hat and glanced across the too fresh-looking
apartment. There was a smell of mortar still in the air, and a faint
suggestion that at any moment green grass might appear between the
interstices of the red-brick hearth. The room, yielding a little in the
point of coldness, seemed to share Miss Nellie's fresh virginity, and,
barring the pink parasol, set her off as in a vestal's cell.
"I supposed you wouldn't care to see Brace, the expressman, so I got
rid of him at the door," said her father, drawing one of the new chairs
towards him slowly, and sitting down carefully, as if it were a hitherto
untried experiment.
Miss Nellie's face took a tint of interest. "Then he doesn't go with the
coach to Indian Spring to-day?"
"No; why?"
"I thought of going over myself to get the Burnham girls to come to
choir-meeting," replied Miss Nellie carelessly, "and he might have been
company."
"He'd go now, if he knew you were going," said her father; "but it's
just as well he shouldn't be needlessly encouraged. I rather think that
Sheriff Dunn is a little jealous of him. By the way, the sheriff is
much better. I called to cheer him up to-day" (Mr. Wynn had in fact
tumultuously accelerated the sick man's pulse), "and he talked of you,
as usual. In fact, he said he had only two things to get well for. One
was to catch and hang that woman Teresa, who shot him; the other--can't
you guess the other?" he added archly, with a faint suggestion of his
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