Margaret Maliphant

								

"That's a pretty frock, Miss Margaret," said he, as we were waltzing
round.
"Oh, I'm so glad you like it," answered I. "I was afraid it wasn't
suitable."
In the excitement of the ball I had entirely forgotten all about my
appearance, but now that the squire remarked upon it, I remembered how
uncomfortable I had felt in it at first.
"Why not suitable?" asked he.
"Mother bought it at the great Exhibition in '52," said I.
But the real cause of the awkwardness of my feeling had arisen from the
fact that I felt unlike myself in a "party frock," and not at all from
any fear that the frock might be old-fashioned.
"Oh! and Miss Hoad considers that an objection, I suppose," smiled he.
"Well, I don't. There's only one thing I don't like," added he, in his
most downright manner. "I don't like the trinkets. You're too young for
trinkets."
He had felt it. He had felt just what I had felt--that it was
unsuitable for a girl like me to be dressed up.
"You mean the corals," said I; and my voice sank a little, for I was
proud of the corals too, and pleased that mother should have given them
to me.
"Yes," he answered. "They are very pretty; but," he added, gently, "a
young girl's neck is so much prettier."
We waltzed round two turns without speaking. Then he said abruptly,
"Perhaps, by-the-way, I ought not to have said that, but I think such
old friends as we are may say anything to one another, mayn't we?"
"Why, of course," said I, rather surprised.
The speech was not at all like one of the squire's. I had always
thought that he said just whatever he liked to any of us. But to be
sure, until the other evening, he had never spoken very much to me at
all.
I laughed--a little nervous laugh. I was stupidly nervous that night
with the squire. "I think we should be very silly if we didn't say
whatever came into our heads," said I. "I don't think I like people
who don't say what they think. Although, of course, it is much more
difficult for me to say things to you than for you to say them to me."
"Why?" asked he.
"Well, of course, because you're so much older," answered I.
He was silent. For a moment the high spirits that I had so specially
noticed in him seemed to desert him.
"Well, what do you want to say to me that's disagreeable?" said he
presently, with a little laugh.
"Oh, nothing disagreeable," declared I. "It's about your nephew,
Captain Forrester."
"Oh!" said he.
His expression changed. It was as though I had not said what he had
expected me to say. But his brow clouded yet more, only it was more
with anger than sadness--the same look of anger that he had worn the
other afternoon. He certainly was a very hot-tempered man.
"I don't think you are fair to him," said I, boldly.
He looked at me. He smiled a little.
"In what way not fair to him?" said he.
"Well, if it had been any one else but me," answered I, "and you had
said all that you did say the other day in the Grange parlor, I think