Margaret Maliphant

								

"I didn't know how to say so; you scarcely gave me a chance,"
answered she. "Of course, I know you did it because I was so stupidly
frightened, but it makes me rather uncomfortable now."
"Oh, I thought you seemed to get on very well with Captain Forrester,
just now," said I, huffily, kneeling down to reach the cake on the
bottom shelf. "You seemed quite civil to him, and you didn't look
uncomfortable."
"Didn't I? I'm glad," answered Joyce, simply. "Of course one wants to
be civil to the squire's friends in father's house. And I do think he
is a very polite gentleman."
She took up the tray and moved on into the parlor, and I went across
into the kitchen to fetch the urn. I had never been envious of Joyce's
beauty up to the present time. Nothing had happened to make me so, and
I was fully occupied in being proud of it. But if her beauty was of
such little account to her that she had not even been pleased by this
handsome man's admiration of it--well, I thought I could have made
better use of it.
When I went into the parlor again the groups were all changed. Father
stood by the fire and the squire had risen. Father had his hands
crossed behind his back and his sarcastic expression on, and the squire
was talking loudly. Joyce was laying the cloth, and mother stood by the
window where sister had stood before; Captain Forrester was talking to
her as if he had never cared to do anything else. I could not hear what
they were saying, the squire's voice was too loud; but I could see that
mother was quite civil.
"I never liked that man Hoad," the squire was saying, and I felt
a throb of satisfaction as I heard him. "I don't believe he's
straightforward. Do anything for money, that's my feeling."
"He's a friend of mine," said father, stiffly.
"Oh, well, of course, if he's a friend of yours, well and good,"
answered Mr. Broderick, shortly. "You probably know him better than I
do. But I don't like him. I should never be able to trust him."
"Perhaps that is because you do not know him," suggested father.
"No doubt, no doubt," answered the squire.
"I hear he has turned Radical now," added he, coming to the real core
of the grievance. "He used to call himself a Liberal, but now I hear he
calls himself a Radical, and is going to put up some Radical candidate
to oppose us."
"Yes, I know," answered father, too honest to deny the charge.
"Oh, do you know who it is?" asked the squire, sharply.
"No, I don't," answered father, in the same way.
The squire paused a moment, then he said, unable to keep it in, "Are
you going to support him too?"
The color went out of father's face; I knew he was angry.
"Well, Mr. Broderick, I don't know what sort of a candidate it'll be,"
said he, in a provoking manner. "There's Radicals and Radicals."
The squire smacked his boot with his walking-stick and did not answer.
Captain Forrester came forward, for mother had gone to the table to