Meg reads the morning papers to Sir Malcolm.—Page 255.
"Understand me," said the old man with deliberate distinctness, looking full at Meg. "It is a business proposal. I still maintain my point. I do not want gratitude. If I accept your services, it is on the condition that you will accept a remuneration."
Meg colored. For a moment she knit her brows, then she said with effort, "I shall accept the chance of being of service to you under any condition, sir, that you may name."
"So be it, then," said the baronet.
At a sign from him Meg sat down and took up the Times. "Where shall I begin, sir?" she asked.
"With the first leader, if you please," he replied with an inclination of the head, crossing his knees, and composing himself to listen.
Meg read, mastering her nervousness with a strong effort of will. Once or twice she looked up and caught his eyes fixed upon her, with that new curiosity in their glance that seemed to humanize their expression.
After she had read the Times, the political leaders of the Standard, and selections from its foreign correspondence under Sir Malcolm's directions, a third paper remained—the local organ apparently—the Greywolds Mercury. At the murmured injunction of her auditor, "The leader, if you please," Meg once more set upon her task.
The article handled a book upon the rights of property which had lately appeared and was making a stir. As Meg read the opening paragraph her voice faltered and hesitated. She was reading a fierce attack upon Sir Malcolm Loftdale.