“You rule with a rod of iron here, Gregory,” said Oliver, his long fingers twining together; “what you say goes. Still, you know, you might go a little too far.”
Gregory did not reply, but stood watching him as a lion might watch a reptile.
“I am willing to stay in Fraternia, under favourable conditions,” Oliver proceeded, with hideous cunning; “but I should think, as I am paying pretty well for my accommodations, I ought, at least, to get the liberty of the grounds. What do you say?”
“I say, Go, this minute, or I’ll throw you neck and crop down that bank,” said Gregory, with unmistakable sincerity, at which Oliver, suddenly cowed, and his weak legs trembling under him, faced about promptly and retreated down the path. He paused at a safe distance, while Gregory’s hands tingled to collar him, and called back, in a loud, confidential whisper:—
“You can have her all to yourself this time. That’s all right,” and with this he hurried off, his thin lips writhing in a malicious smile, and his hands clenched tightly and cruelly.
For a moment Gregory stood still in the path. A dark flush had mounted slowly even to his forehead. He was irresolute whether to follow and find Anna, or to return directly to the valley. Something in Oliver’s ugly taunt acted like a challenge upon him, it seemed, for, turning, and catching through the trees the glimmer of Anna’s white dress, he hastened on up the path.
He found her sitting on a mossy rock at the foot of the cliff, where there were trees and shade and a fair view of the valley, and the blue billowing sea of the mountain ranges beyond. Her strength and colour had returned with the out-door life of the spring, and she looked to-day the embodiment of radiant health. Greatly astonished at Gregory’s appearance, she yet welcomed it with unaffected gladness, starting to rise from her low seat with the impulses of social observance which she could not quite outgrow even in the wilderness; but he motioned to her to sit still. All around her the children had flung their branches of laurel and azalea, running off to gather more and bring her, and the delicate suffusion of colour made an exquisite background to the picture. The picture itself, Gregory thought, Everett ought to have painted for a Madonna; for in Anna’s lap leaned a sturdy, fair-haired boy, with a cherub face, a child of less than four years, his head thrust back against her shoulder as he looked out from that vantage ground with serene eyes at Gregory, while Anna held one round little hand in hers and looked down upon the child with all the wistful fondness of unfulfilled maternal love.
“Do not smile,” said Gregory, with affected sternness at last, as she glanced up from the child to him with a questioning smile, expecting some explanation for his presence here; “I have come this time to scold you.”
“O dear!” said Anna, with a gay little laugh of surprise. “My turn has come!”
“Yes, your turn has come,” he continued gravely. “Do you not know that when you come away on such long, lonely climbs as this, even with the children, you give us anxiety for you, and trouble? I have had to come all this distance to take care of you.”