“Honest work will be nothing strange to him, father. He has been in a great many offices. I have heard Elizabeth speaking of many a one.”
“I’ll warrant––many a one––and he never stays in any. He has a bad temper for work.”
“Bad temper! That is not true. Mr. Roland has a very good temper.”
“Good temper! To be sure, after a fashion, a 80 kind of Hy-to-everybody fashion. But a good business temper, Denas, be a different thing; it be steady, patient, civil, quiet, hard-to-work temper, and the young man has not got it. No, nor the shadow of it. If he was worth thousands this year he wouldn’t have a farthing next year unless he had a guider and a withholder by his side constantly.”
“You ought not to speak of Mr. Roland at all, father, you hate him that badly.”
“Right you be, Denas. I ought not to speak of the young man. I will let him alone. And I’ll thank every one in my house to do the same thing.”
For some weeks John’s orders were carefully observed. Denas got no more letters, and the summer weather became autumn weather; and then the leaves faded and began to fall, and the equinoctial storm set the seal of advancing winter on the cliff-breast. Yet through all these changes the clock ticked the monotonous days surely away, and one morning when Denas was standing alone in the cottage door a little lad slipped up and put a letter into her hand.
He was gone in a moment, and Denas, even while answering a remark of her mother’s, who was busy at the fireside, hid the message in her bosom. Of course it was from Roland. He said that they had all returned to Burrell Court and that he could not rest until he had seen her. Wet or fine, he begged she would be at their old trysting-place that evening.
Then she began to consider how this was to be managed, and she came to the conclusion that a visit to St. Penfer was the best way. She knew 81 well how to prepare for it––the little helps, and confidences, and personal chatter Joan was always pleased and flattered by were the wedge. Then as they washed the dinner dishes and tidied the house together, Denas said:
“Mother, it is going to storm soon, and then whole days to sit and sew and nothing to talk about. Priscilla Mohun promised me some pretty pieces for my quilt, and Priscilla always knows everything that is going on. What do you think? Shall I go there this afternoon? I could get the patches and hear the news and bring back a story paper, and so be home before you would have time to miss me.”