“Ay, do, sir,” replied the sick woman, warmly; “she will be rare glad to see you.”
Mr. Crosbie strode down the path, and let the gate swing behind him. He turned to the right, and walked quickly along in the glaring heat, with his eyes fixed in an almost eager way on the long straight road before him. Away in the distance appeared an object—a patch of something pink moving very slowly toward him. His pace increased, the distance lessened between this object and himself, and gradually the pink patch melted into the slender form of a girl, her bent head covered with a flapping white sunbonnet, a small basket on her right arm, and a book between her two little brown hands. She came on very slowly; apparently the heat had no effect on her, although the sun was beating on her with scorching force. Mr. Crosbie slackened his pace as they drew nearer, and at last came to a standstill. The girl was so deeply absorbed in her book that she was unaware of his presence till, looking up suddenly, she saw him just in front of her. The book dropped, a flush of color mantled her clear, transparent face, and a look of intense pleasure shone in her great blue eyes.
“Mr. Stuart! Oh, how you startled me!”
“Did I, Margery?” returned Stuart, removing his felt hat and grasping her hand firmly. “What are you made of? You must be a salamander to live in this heat; yet here you are walking along as if it were in Iceland; and you look as cool as”—hesitating for a smile—“as a cucumber.”
“Oh, I don’t mind a little sunshine!” said the girl, with a slightly contemptuous curl of her short upper lip. “In fact, I don’t feel it. But where are you going, Mr. Stuart? Have you seen mother?”
“Yes,” replied the young man, turning beside her and taking the basket from her arm. “She told me you had gone to Bright’s farm, and I am anxious to know how his crops are.”
“He is grumbling, of course,” Margery answered; “but I fancy he is, on the whole, well satisfied.”
Their eyes met, and they both burst into a merry fit of laughter.
“You don’t care a bit about the crops—you know you don’t!” remarked Margery, severely, as she tried to banish the merriment from the corners of her mouth.
“Well, strictly between ourselves, I don’t. It is a fearful confession for a farm-owner to make, but it is the truth.”