"Is Miss Forest at home?"
"No."
"And Doctor and Mrs. Stephen?"
"They, too, have gone out."
"Are they expected back soon?"
"Every minute."
"Then we shall do better to wait here in the garden than to go back to the hotel," said Atkins. "Frederic, announce our arrival to the family immediately upon their return."
Frederic gazed after the retiring gentleman with open displeasure. "And here is another! This makes the third who has come. These American guests will at last drive us out of house and home. I wish"--His further mutterings were lost in the closing of the door which he had shut with such violence that the window panes rattled.
"What is the matter with the fellow?" asked Alison, as they entered the garden, "he gave us a very singular reception."
Atkins laughed. "A German bear, gigantic, snappish, awkward, into whose wooden head a sort of national antipathy against us seems to have entered. I cannot boast of having seen anything but this bearish manner in him, although to others he is harmless and good natured, even to stupidity."