She glanced up teasingly at Captain Forrester as she spoke. She was a little woman, and had to glance up a long way; but although he laughed, his face was troubled; and I could see he was trying to catch my eye.
"Well, good-bye," said Mary to me. "I'm sorry you mayn't come."
I took the hand which she offered, but when she held it out afterwards to father he only bowed with laborious politeness. I think I blushed with annoyance as we turned away, but he made no allusion to the meeting; only his brightened humor of five minutes ago had evaporated, and his features were working painfully.
"I shall go and fetch little David Jarrett, Meg," said he. "The sun is warm now, and it'll do him good to lie a bit in the garden. Go home and tell mother."
I went, and a quarter of an hour later he carried the boy in—a poor little delicate fellow, whose father had knocked him down in a drunken fit, and who had been a cripple ever since. We had heard of the misfortune too late to be of much use; for continued want of proper nourishment on a sickly frame had caused the accident to set up a disease from which the poor child was scarcely likely to recover; but all that could be done father had had done, and he was his special favorite among many friends in the younger portion of the community. We spread a mattress on the garden bench and laid him there, and mother sent me out with port-wine and strengthening broth for him, and father spent all the afternoon beside the little fellow, reading and talking to him.
Beyond alluding to Captain Forrester's arrival when mother spoke of it, he made no mention of his young friend or of what had hurt him in the passing meeting with him. But when Frank came, as promised, in the evening, the storm broke.
He came in just as if he had not been away from us these two months; just as kindly, just as interested in all we had been doing, just as easy and charming. But when, I fancied a trifle diffidently, he opened up the subject of the charity scheme, father suffered no misunderstanding to abide.
"I know Thorne is an old friend of your family's, my lad," he said, "and I understand that you can't throw off an acquaintance of your youth; but as to this affair, I want to make it quite clear that I'll have no influence of his to start the school with. If I could help it I'd have none of his money. I can't help that, and the 'big figure' must stand; but I'll have none of him, or the likes of him, on any committee that may be formed, not while I'm in it."
Father always became vernacular when he was excited.
"Very well, sir," smiled Frank. "It's your affair, and I must be led by you. I think you're mistaken. You miss the valuable help of a large and influential class, and why you should forbid manufacturers to remedy an evil which they may have been partly instrumental in increasing, I don't know. But you have your reasons, and I am in your hands."