She would not enter upon any account of her evening's work until she felt sure that the wants of her father's inner man were satisfied; but when supper was over, and his evening pipe—the one luxury in the day he allowed himself—alight, she drew up a hassock beside his chair and prepared for what she called "a good long chat."
Opportunities for such a chat with her father were rather rare in that household, and Janetta meant to make the most of this one. Nora had good-naturedly volunteered to stay away from the dining-room, so as to give Janetta the chance that she wished for; and as it was now barely ten o'clock, Janetta knew that she might perhaps have an hour of her father's companionship—if, at least, he were not sent for before eleven o'clock. At eleven he would probably go to Mrs. Maitland's to fetch his wife home.
"Well, Janet, and what have you to tell me?" he said kindly, as he stretched out his slippered feet to the blaze, and took down his pipe from the mantel-piece. The lines had cleared away from his face as if by magic; there was a look of rest and peace upon his face that his daughter liked to see. She laid her hand on his knee and kept it there while she told him of her experiences that evening at Brand Hall.
Mr. Colwyn's eyebrows went up as he listened. His face expressed astonishment, and something very like perplexity. But he heard the whole story out before he said a word.
"Well, you have put your head into the lion's den!" he said at last, in a half-humorous tone.
"What I want to know is," said Janetta, "why it is thought to be a lion's den! I don't mean that I have heard the expression before, but I have gathered in different ways an impression that people avoid the house——"
"The family, not the house, Janet!"
"Of course I mean the family, father, dear. What have they done that they should be shunned?"
"There is a good deal against them in the eyes of the world. Your poor mother, Janetta, always stood up for them, and said that they were more sinned against than sinning."
"They? But these young men were not grown up then?"