Margaret Maliphant

								

self-confidence.
"Why, yes, child, of course," he replied. "And you and I will be able
to get on yet awhile without a stranger's help, I'll warrant." It was
the only allusion he had made to the horrible subject during the whole
of our interview. It was the only allusion he made to it in my presence
for many a long day. He rose from his chair as he spoke the last words,
and walked across to the window.
The afternoon was beginning to sink, and the sun had paled in its
splendor. The lights were gray now over the whiteness of the marsh, and
the snow looked cold and cruel. Something made my heart sink, too, as
I noticed how gray was father's face in the scrutinizing light of the
afternoon. I had not noticed before that he had really been ill. I left
the room quickly, and went out again. The stinging March air struck a
chill into my bones, and yet it was scarcely more than four o'clock.
Two hours of daylight yet! How was it possible that any man but the
strongest should work as a man must work whose farm should prosper? And
was father really a strong man? I was sick with misgivings. What if,
after all, the squire were right? But I would not believe it. Father
had had the gout; it was always the strongest men who had the gout.
I turned to go in-doors. A laugh greeted my ears from the library. I
passed before the window. Yes; it was father who was laughing as he
shook hands with a man who had just entered the room. I looked. The
man was a tall, blond, spare fellow, with a sanguine complexion, very
marked features, small gray eyes, and a bald head. I knew him to be a
Mr. Hoad, father's solicitor in town. He was well dressed in a black
suit and gray trousers. He was a very successful man for his time of
life, people said. I knew that father liked him, and I was glad that
father should have a visitor who cheered him to-day. But for my own
part, I knew no one who filled me with such a peculiar antipathy. I
could not bear the sight of the man. Yet he was a harmless kind of
fellow, and very polite to ladies. Joyce often used to take me to
task for my excessive dislike to him. If it was because I did not
consider him on equal terms with us, from a social point of view--for
I must confess I was ridiculously prejudiced on this score, and where
I had learned such nonsense I do not know--then the ship-owners and
other people of that class to whom I could give "good-day" in town
were much less so. But I could not have told why I disliked him so
particularly; I could not have told why I wondered that father could
have any dealings with him--why I was always on the watch for something
that should prove that I was in the right in my instinct. And somehow
his appearance on this particular evening affected me even more
uncomfortably than usual, and I felt that I could not go in and see
him--perhaps even have to discuss the very subject that was weighing
on my mind, when I wanted to be alone to nurse my own mortification,