"Now I declare, meeting him just as a friend like this, I'm always forgetting that he's a famous man."
"Please go on, Mrs. Delane. It's a capital exchange. But when are you going to give me the pleasure of seeing you at Littlehill?"
Mrs. Delane paused for just a second.
"I should like to visit your hermit's cell. But I'm so busy just now, and I dare say you are. When your guests forsake you, perhaps we will come and relieve your solitude. Janet, will you give us some music?"
Dale followed Janet to the piano, with a little frown on his brow. Why wouldn't she come now? Was it—— Janet's voice dispersed the frown and the reflection.
She sang a couple of songs, choosing them out of a book. As she turned over the leaves, Dale saw that some of the airs were set to words of his own writing. When Janet came to one of these, she turned the leaf hastily. The Squire had gone out, and Mrs. Delane, with the privilege of near relationship, was absorbed in a novel.
"Will you do me a great favor?" he said.
"What, Mr. Bannister?"
"I should like to hear you sing words of mine. See, here are two or three."