Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-40.djvu/21

Rh too bad we should turn her out. I'd far rather they had let us sleep in the barn. I wish you had seen her when I came upon her. I frightened her sadly, poor little thing!—but not much more than she frightened me. I assure you it was several moments before I was convinced it was all real. I caught sight of her first sitting on a rock, with her hands clasping her knees and her eyes gazing out at the water, looking so still and dreamy; and the next instant she had sprung upright with such an alert air and well-carried little head that the change was wonderful. But there's the supper-bell, and we must go down."

At table, Stella sat between two of the boys, and occupied herself chiefly in suppressing their noisy talk and supplying their wants in the way of hot muffins and butter and milk, so as to preserve some resemblance to decorum, and all this filled up her time so completely that she had nothing to bestow upon the guests except an occasional demure glance, and even that was generally in the nature of a swift investigation as to whether it had been observed that Tommy was choking with laughter and muffin combined, or that Jim had tipped his chair backward and nearly overturned the table. These, the two elder boys, were dreadfully uncouth, and Stella had tried in vain to counteract the association of the herdsmen and hands about the farm, whose manners and methods seemed to Tommy and Jim so much more worthy of emulation than the more controlled usages of the members of their family. The youngest boy, who sat on one side of his sister, was a gentle, unobtrusive child, on whom she now and then turned an approving smile, as he sat up and ate his supper with much decorum and the air, it must be confessed, of a small prig. Bertrand, who was nearer to Stella than his friend, made one or two efforts to talk with her, but her replies were only monosyllables, and her attention was so evidently monopolized by the boys that he decided to defer his conversation until after supper. Estcott, for his part, was doing his duty bravely by his hostess, who, if he had but known it, would have better liked to be left alone.

And it happened after supper that the opportunity Bertrand had counted on never came. Dr. Gray took them off into the porch to enjoy a smoke in the moonlight, and they sat there talking until very late, and when they came in the ladies had retired. As it was planned that they were to set off very early in the morning, both young men acknowledged rather ruefully that their chance of seeing the daughter again was probably gone.

"Did it strike you," said Bertrand, when they were in their room together, "that perhaps the excellent doctor connived at this result? I rather believe that he knew we wanted to see the girl again, and, knowing as little of us as he does, he was more than willing that our