Page:Steadfast Heart.djvu/239

 In the early summer of that year Mr. Woodhouse prepared to make an extended trip in the East—combining business and pleasure, and Angus was to be left alone, in sole authority for a matter of six weeks.

“I want to rest and to play,” said Mr. Woodhouse. “I want to forget all about Rainbow and business and mortgages and loans. While I am in Boston I shall stay at a modest, inconspicuous hotel, and nobody excepting yourself shall have my address. I don’t care what comes up—no matter who it concerns nor how important it is—don’t trouble me with it. I depend upon you, Angus…. At this season it is scarcely likely anything of great importance will arise, but if it does, exercise your own judgment and tell me about it when I get home.”

“Very well, sir,” said Angus. “I’ll try to manage.”

Mingling with men, with strangers on business errands from the outside world, and, in a limited degree, with the younger folks of Rainbow, had loosened somewhat Angus’s tongue. He did not speak so slowly, with that appearance of phlegm, of stolid thinking which had once been characteristic of him. His ideas took form in words more readily; his speech was more facile.

“There is one matter I have waited to speak