Margaret Maliphant

								

insisted on everything being pleasant and friendly in return, and did
not seem somehow to be able to deny him the freedom which he claimed
so naturally, of coming to the house whenever the fancy seized him.
Certainly it would have been very difficult to turn Captain Forrester
out.
Although it was evident enough to every one but father, in his dreamy
self-absorption, that the young man came to see my beautiful sister,
and was quickly falling hopelessly in love with her, still he was far
too courteous to neglect others for her--he was always doing something
for mother, procuring her something that she wanted, or in some way
helping her; and as for me, he not only took all the burden of the
village concert off my shoulders, the musical part of which always fell
to my lot, but he also taught me how to sing my songs as I had no idea
of how to sing them before, and took so much interest in my voice and
in my performance that he really made me quite ambitious for the time
as to what I might possibly do. And however much mother might have
wished to turn the captain out, there were difficulties attending this
course of action.
In the first place, he was the squire's nephew, and she could not very
well be rude to the squire's nephew, however much she may have fancied
that the squire would, in his heart, condone it; and then father had
taken such an unusually strong fancy to the young man, that it would
have been more than mother had ever been known to do to gainsay it.
This friendship between an old and a young man was really a remarkable
thing.
Father was not at all given to marked preferences for people; he was
a reserved man, and his own society was generally sufficient for him.
Even in the class whose interests he had so dearly at heart--his
own class he would have called it, although in force and culture he
was very far above the typical representatives of it--he was a god
to the many, rather than a friend to the individual. And apart from
his friendship with the squire, which was a friendship rather of
custom than of choice, I do not remember his having a single intimate
acquaintance. For I do not choose to consider that Hoad ever really was
a friend in any sense of the word.
I have always fancied that father's capacity for friendship was
swallowed up in that one romantic episode of his youth, that stood side
by side with his love for our mother, and was not less beautiful though
so different.
At first I think Forrester's aristocratic appearance, his knowledge of
hunting and horse-flesh, and music and dancing, and all the pleasures
of the rich and idle, his polished manners, and even his good coat,
rather stood in his light in the eyes of the "working-man;" but it was
only at first. Forrester's genuine enthusiasm for the interests that
he affected, and his admiring deference for the mind that had thought
the problem out, were enough to win the friendship of any man; for I