Margaret Maliphant

								

of the squire if he did want to marry her," continued I, without paying
any attention to this remark. I paused a moment before I added, "She
couldn't, anyhow, because she's in love with another man."
Mother looked at me over her spectacles. She looked at me as though she
did not see me, and yet she looked me through and through.
"Margaret," said she, at last, loftily, "I consider it most unseemly of
you to say such a thing of your sister. A well brought up girl don't go
about falling in love with men in that kind of way."
"A girl must fall in love with the man she means to marry, mother; at
least, so I should think," said I.
And I marched off into the kitchen with the jam-pot that wanted a
label, and did not come out again till I heard the study door open, and
the squire's voice in the hall.
"Well, you'll come to dinner on Thursday, anyhow, and see him," he was
saying; "it need bind you to nothing."
Father grumbled something as he hobbled across, and I noticed again how
lame he was that day. The squire, seeing mother upon the threshold of
the parlor door, stopped and added, pleasantly, "Maliphant has promised
to bring you up to dine at the Manor, so mind you hold him to his
word." Mother assured him that she would, and the squire went out.
"Well?" asked she, turning to father with a questioning look on her
face, which was neither so hopeful nor so happy as it had been ten
minutes ago.
"Well?" echoed he, somewhat crossly. Then his frown changing to a
smile, he patted her on the arm, and said, merrily, "No, mother, no.
Wrong this time; wrong, old lady, upon my soul. The time hasn't come
yet when we are to have the honor of having our daughters asked in
marriage by the gentry."
"Hush, Laban, hush," cried mother, vexed; for the kitchen door stood
open, and Joyce was within ear-shot. And then, following him into the
parlor, whither I had already found my way, she added, "Maybe I'm
not quite such a fool as you think, and the time will come one day,
although it's not ripe just yet."
"A fool! Who ever called you a fool, Mary? Not I, I'm sure," declared
father. "No, you're a true, shrewd woman, and as you are generally
right in such matters, I dare say you may prove right now; but all I
want to make clear to you is that whatever time the squire's question
comes--if it be a question of that nature--his answer will always be
the same."
Mother said no more. She was a wise woman, and never pursued a vexed
question when there was no need to do so. I, who was not so wise,
thought that I now saw a fitting opportunity for putting in my own
peculiar oar amid the troubled waters.
"I don't think you need trouble your head about it, father," I said.
"Joyce will never marry Squire Broderick, even if he were to ask her.
She's in love with Captain Forrester."
Father turned round with the pipe he was filling 'twixt his finger and
thumb and looked at me.
"Margaret," said mother, "didn't I tell you just now that that was a