Fastening Rocket in his accustomed place in the outer shed, Hugh stamped
the snow from his heavy boots, and then went in to Aunt Eunice's
cheerful kitchen-parlor, as she called it, where the tempting breakfast
stood upon the table.
"No coffee! What new freak is that?" and Aunt Eunice gazed at him in
astonishment as he declined the cup she had prepared with so much care,
dropping in the whitest lumps of sugar, and stirring in the thickest
cream.
It cost Hugh a terrible struggle to refuse that cup of coffee, but if he
would retrench, he must begin at once, and determining to meet it
unflinchingly he replied that "he had concluded to drink water for a
while, and see what that would do; much was said nowadays about coffee
being injurious, and he presumed it was."
"There's something on your mind," she said, observing his abstraction.
"Have you had another dunning letter, or what?"
Aunt Eunice had made a commencement, and in his usual impulsive way Hugh
began by asking if "she ever knew him tell a lie?"
No, Aunt Eunice never did. Nobody ever did, bad as some folks thought
him.
"Do they think me very bad?" and Hugh spoke so mournfully that Aunt
Eunice tried to apologize.
"She didn't mean anything, only folks sometimes said he was cross and
rough, and--and--"
"Stingy," he suggested, supplying the word she hated to say.
Yes, that was what Ellen Tiffton said, because he refused to go to the
Ladies' Fair, where he was sure to have his pockets picked. But, law,
she wasn't worth minding, if she was Colonel Tiffton's girl, and going
to have a big party one week from the next Monday. Had Hugh heard of it?
Hugh believed Ad said something about it yesterday, but he paid no
attention, for, of course, he should not go even if he were invited, as
he had nothing fit to wear.
"But why did you ask if I ever knew you tell a lie?" Aunt Eunice said,
and then in a low tone, as if afraid the walls might hear, Hugh told the
whole story of Adah.
"'Twas a mighty mean trick, I know," he said, as he saw Aunt Eunice's
look of horror when he confessed the part he had had in wronging the
poor girl, "but, Aunt Eunice, that villain coaxed me into drinking wine,
which you know I never use, and I think now he must have drugged it, for
I remember a strange feeling in my head, a feeling not like drunkenness,
for I knew perfectly well what was transpiring around me, and only felt
a don't-care-a-tive-ness which kept me silent when I should have spoken.
She has come to me at last. She believes God sent her, and if He did
He'll help me take care of her. I shall not turn her off."