Margaret Maliphant

								

aversion, Mr. Hoad, even to get her something to eat, my blood boiled,
and I could scarcely speak civilly to him.
And he seemed so interested too, so wrapped up in what the silly
creature was saying, with that nodding old topknot of hers! I
was thankful when he rose and took her outside to finish their
discussion about the poor-laws in the seclusion of some corner of the
drawing-room. I was very angry with him.
I looked suspiciously at the squire, who had taken mother in to supper
and sat at the head of the table with her. Mother was smiling happily:
she was proud of the honor that the squire was doing to her and hers.
But I could not look kindly at the squire. It was infamous if, out of
mere jealousy, he had tried to spoil two lives. Instead of being proud
that he had done my sister the honor of opening the ball with her,
instead of being grateful to him for his kindness to me, and pleased to
see all the attention that he was paying to our mother amid the county
magnates whom he might have preferred, I was eaten up with this new
idea, and felt my heart swell within me as Joyce passed me presently
with that calm and yet half-tired look on her beautiful face.
Midnight was long past, and it was nearly time to go home. In fact,
father had said that it was time to go home long ago. He had made a
new friend in the young parson, and seemed to have passed an hour
happily with him, but the parson had left, and he had exhausted every
argument that he would consent to discuss with the people whom he met
in ordinary society and had been persuaded by Mr. Hoad to speak a civil
word on commonplace subjects to his pet aversion Mr. Thorne, and now he
was thoroughly sick of the whole thing, and would have no more to do
with it.
He came up to mother and begged her to come home, but mother had heard
the squire ask Joyce for another dance later on, and I knew very well
that she would not leave till that was through; besides, she was
the most unselfish old dear in the world, for all her rough words
sometimes, and would never have consented to deprive us of an inch of
pleasure that she could procure us.
Personally I was very grateful to her. I had a dance left with the
squire myself, and besides the pleasure of it, I had been arranging
something that I wanted to say to him. I was standing alone in the
entrance to the conservatory when he came to claim it. I was looking
for Joyce. I had missed her ever since supper. I had thought--I had
hoped--that she was with Captain Forrester, but when Miss Thorne
told me he was talking politics with Mr. Hoad in the drawing-room, I
believed her, and was at a loss to understand my sister's absence.
Could she be unwell? But I did not confide my doubts to the squire. He
put his arm around me and swept me off onto that lovely floor, and I
thought of nothing else.
I remember very clearly how well the squire looked that night--fresh
and merry, with bright keen eyes.