"No, Miss Marjory, he ain't."
"Sutton, I wish you would take this basket of roses round to Mrs. Pennant's. I promised to leave them for Miss Rivers, and I don't feel now as if I could walk any farther."
Sutton rubbed his head dubiously.
"Well, now. Miss Marjory, I've got all this lot of diggin' to do: and however it'll be done, if I'm a-gadding about at all hours for 'ee—"
"Never mind. I'll take the flowers myself," said the girl curtly.
She went straight indoors, blaming herself for the tone before she crossed the threshold. Nobody was in the drawing-room. Books and work lay about carelessly, not untidily. Marjory placed the basket on a table, pulled off her hat, and threw herself down flat on a low couch, having not even a pillow under her head. Though by no means an invalid in habits, she suffered much, and had suffered for years, from spinal weakness. The amount of work Marjory got through in her home and in the Parish was astounding; but frequent short rests were a necessity. "If I can just stop now and then to breathe, I do well enough," she used to say patiently.
Ten minutes of entire stillness were followed by a light tread. Marjory did not stir, except to lift her eyelids. A gentleman entered, unmistakably her father. He was under medium height for a man, and so thin as to be bony, with long fingers and pale skin. His colouring was, however, more healthy than hers, and while it was easily seen whence she had inherited her expressive eyes, the loose hair was in him more scanty and was fast turning grey.
"Marjory resting!" he said in cheery tones, not as if surprised or anxious.
"Yes, father!"
"What have you been doing?"