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Page 14
"You know there's a chorus just here! Why can't you try it with
me?"
Mr. Rylands hesitated a moment, then, with a preliminary cough,
lifted a voice as crude as hers, but powerful through much camp-
meeting exercise, and roared a chorus which was remarkable chiefly
for requiring that archness and playfulness in execution which he
lacked. As the whole house seemed to dilate with the sound, and
the wind outside to withhold its fury, Mr. Rylands felt that
physical delight which children feel in personal outcry, and was
grateful to his wife for the opportunity. Laying his hand
affectionately on her shoulder, he noticed for the first time that
she was in a kind of evening-dress, and that her delicate white
shoulder shone through the black lace that enveloped it.
For an instant Mr. Rylands was shocked at this unwonted exposure.
He had never seen his wife in evening-dress before. It was true
they were alone, and in their own sitting-room, but the room was
still invested with that formality and publicity which seemed to
accent this indiscretion. The simple-minded frontier man's mind
went back to Jane, to the hired man, to the expressman, the
stranger, all of whom might have noticed it also.
"You have a new dress," he said slowly, "have you worn it all day?"
"No," she said, with a timid smile. "I only put it on just before
you came. It's the one I used to wear in the ballroom scene in
'Gay Times in 'Frisco.' You don't know it, I know. I thought I
would wear it tonight, and then," she suddenly grasped his hand,
"you'll let me put all these things away forever! Won't you, Josh?
I've seen such nice pretty calico at the store to-day, and I can
make up one or two home dresses, like Jane's, only better fitting,
of course. In fact, I asked them to send the roll up here to-
morrow for you to see."
Mr. Rylands felt relieved. Perhaps his views had changed about the
moral effect of her retaining these symbols of her past, for he
consented to the calico dresses, not, however, without an inward
suspicion that she would not look so well in them, and that the one
she had on was more becoming.
Meantime she tried another piece of music. It was equally
incongruous and slightly Bacchantic.
"There used to be a mighty pretty dance went to that," she said,
nodding her head in time with the music, and assisting the heavily
spasmodic attempts of the instrument with the pleasant levity of
her voice. "I used to do it."
"Ye might try it now, Ellen," suggested her husband, with a half-
frightened, half-amused tolerance.
"YOU play, then," said Mrs. Rylands quickly, offering her seat to
him.
Mr. Rylands sat down to the harmonium, as Mrs. Rylands briskly
moved the table and chairs against the wall. Mr. Rylands played
slowly and strenuously, as from a conscientious regard of the
instrument. Mrs. Rylands stood in the centre of the floor, making
a rather pretty, animated picture, as she again stimulated the
heavy harmonium swell not only with her voice but her hands and
feet. Presently she began to skip.
I should warn the reader here that this was before the "shawl" or
"skirt" dancing was in vogue, and I am afraid that pretty Mrs.
Rylands's performances would now be voted slow. Her silk skirt and
frilled petticoat were lifted just over her small ankles and tiny
bronze-kid shoes. In the course of a pirouette or two, there was a
slight further revelation of blue silk stockings and some delicate
embroidery, but really nothing more than may be seen in the sweep
of a modern waltz. Suddenly the music ceased. Mr. Rylands had
left the harmonium and walked over to the hearth. Mrs. Rylands
stopped, and came towards him with a flushed, anxious face.
"It don't seem to go right, does it?" she said, with her nervous
laugh. "I suppose I'm getting too old now, and I don't quite
remember it."
"Better forget it altogether," he replied gravely. He stopped at
seeing a singular change in her face, and added awkwardly, "When I
told you I didn't want you to be ashamed of your past, nor to try
to forget what you were, I didn't mean such things as that!"
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