Margaret Maliphant

								

Somehow I was glad that I had just seen Joyce and Captain Forrester go
down the cliff out of sight a few minutes before the squire arrived.
"Everybody out?" asked he.
"Yes," answered I. "Everybody."
He did not ask whether his nephew had been there. He drew a chair up to
the table and began playing with the reels and tapes in my work-basket.
Mother and Joyce would have been in an agony at seeing their sacred
precincts invaded by the cruel hand of man, but it rather amused me to
see the hopeless mess into which he was getting the hooks and silks and
needles. My basket never was a miracle of orderliness at any time.
"Is Miss Joyce quite well?" said he at last, trying to get the scissors
free of a train of cotton in which he had entangled them.
I felt almost inclined to laugh. Even to me, who am awkward enough,
this seemed such an awkward way of introducing the subject, for of
course I had guessed that he had missed her directly he had come into
the room.
"Yes, quite well, thank you," answered I. And then I added, laughing,
and seeing that he had got hold of a bit of my lace, "Oh, take care,
please, that's a bit of my finery for to-morrow night."
He dropped it as if it had burned him. "Oh dear, dear, yes, how clumsy
I am!" cried he, pushing the work-basket far from him. "I hope I have
spoiled nothing."
"Why, no, of course not," laughed I. "I oughtn't to have spoken.
But you see I have only got that one bit of lace, and I want it for
to-morrow night."
"Oh yes; I suppose you young ladies are going to be very grand indeed,"
smiled he.
"Oh no, not grand," insisted I, "but very jolly. We mean to enjoy
ourselves, I can tell you."
"That's right," said he; "so do I."
But he could not get away from the subject of Joyce.
"Has your sister gone far?" asked he, in a minute.
"I don't know," I answered, quite determined to throw no light upon the
subject of where she was and with whom.
A direct question made it difficult now to keep to this determination.
"Do you know if my nephew has been here this afternoon?" was the
question.
I looked down intently at my work.
"Yes, he came," answered I. "He sat some while with father, till father
went out."
I did not add any mention of where he had been since. It was a
prevarication of course, but I thought I did it out of a desire to
spare the squire's feelings. He asked no more questions. He sat silent
for a while.
"Your father and Frank seem to be great friends," observed he,
presently, and I fancied a little bitterly.
"Yes," I replied, "Captain Forrester has quite picked father's spirits
up. He has been a different man since he had him to sympathize with
over his pet schemes."
I felt directly I had said the words that they were inconsiderate
words, and I regretted them, but I could not take them back.
Squire Broderick flushed over his fair, white brow.
"Yes; my nephew professes to be as keen after all these democratic