Margaret Maliphant
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"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
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"Margaret Maliphant Books." Literature.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Oct. 2024. <https://www.literature.com/book/margaret_maliphant_63202>.