Stuart removed his felt tennis-hat and bowed low.
“My lady-mother,” he said lightly, “your wishes shall be obeyed.”
He put on his hat and strolled away, while a frown settled on his mother’s face. She tapped her writing-table with her pen, in evident vexation; but after a while her brow cleared, as if some new thought had come into her mind and by its bright magic dispelled the cloud.
Stuart Crosbie sauntered on over the lawn. A moment before he had grumbled at a prospective walk in the heat when the day would be declining, yet now he made no haste to get out of the sun’s rays, although trees whose spreading branches promised shade and coolness studded his path. He had pushed his hat well over his eyes, and with his hands still in his pockets dawdled on, as if with no settled purpose in his mind.
He had strolled in a circuitous route, for, after progressing in this fashion for some time, he looked up and found himself almost opposite to the window—though at a distance—from which he had started. His mother’s head was clearly discernible bent over her writing, and, waking suddenly from his dreams, he left the lawn, betook himself to a path, and made for a gate at the end. The lodgekeeper’s wife was seated at her door, having brought her work into the air for coolness. She rose hurriedly as she perceived the young squire striding down the path, and opened the gate.
“Why did you trouble, Mrs. Clark?” said Mr. Crosbie, courteously. “I could have managed that myself.”
“Law sakes, Master Stuart, my good man would be main angry if he thought I’d let you do such a thing!”
“Jim must be taught manners,” Stuart laughed lightly. “How do you like this weather?”
Mrs. Clark mopped her brow with her apron.
“It’s fair killing, sir,” she answered; “I never remind me of such a summer. But folks is never content. Mayhap what tries me is good for others—your young lady cousin, for one, sir. Mrs. Martha tells me she is very weakly like. She be coming to-day.”