"Now tell me about my
calf," she said after they were seated side by side.
As she introduced this subject, Ambrose suddenly looked out of the
window. She caught sight of his uneasy profile.
"Now, don't tell me that there's any bad hews about it!" she cried.
"It is the only pet I have."
"Miss Harriet," he said, turning his face farther away, "you forget
how long your calf has been out here; it isn't a calf any longer:
it has had a calf."
He spoke so sternly that Harriet, who all her life had winced
before sternness, felt herself in some wise to be blamed. And
coolness was settling down upon them when she desired only a
melting and radiant warmth.
"Well," she objected apologetically, "isn't it customary? What's
the trouble? What's the objection? This is a free country!
Whatever is natural is right! Why are you so displeased?"
About the same hour the next Monday morning Ambrose was again
pacing his hallway and thinking of Harriet. At least she was no
tyrant: the image of her softness rose before him again. "I make
no mistake this time."
His uncertainty at the present moment was concerned solely with the
problem of what his offering should be in this case: under what
image should love present itself? The right thought came to him by
and by; and taking from his storeroom an ornamental basket with a
top to it, he went out to his pigeon house and selected two blue
squabs. They were tender and soft and round; without harshness,
cruelty, or deception.
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