“Yes, sir, I will take care of that,” answered Mrs. Pritchard, with ready comprehension.
“And you must get him whatever he wants in the way of clothes,” continued the Squire, handing across a crisp bank-note. “You had better have the dog-cart, and get William to drive you both in to Twing to-morrow morning. Buy whatever is needful for the present, and order what you cannot get at once. The child must look as he should whilst he stays under my roof.”
Mrs. Pritchard rose and curtsied and took the money held out.
“Thank you, sir,” she said; “I will see that your wishes are carried out to the best of my powers.”
She withdrew, and the Squire was left alone with his books and his dying fire. The night was merging into day before he roused himself from the reverie into which he had sunk, and extinguished the lamp that had grown pale in the feeble glimmer of coming dawn.
CHAPTER III.
A LITTLE INTRUDER.
THE Squire’s study had a westerly aspect and as evening drew on the sunset rays streamed into the quaint, quiet room and flooded it with golden light. The old calf-bound books upon the long rows of shelves took all manner of rich hues, and the picture over the fireplace, representing a beautiful woman with two fair children beside her, seemed to awake to a new and smiling life.
The Squire had been a little less self-possessed than usual upon this particular day. Work seemed irksome to him. He had not been able to give undivided attention to his bailiff’s accounts of the farm and stock, and shortly after he had finished his lunch he ordered his horse and set out for a ride over the estate, feeling that air and exercise would be more congenial to him in his present mood than any sedentary work could be. He did not examine into his state of mind, nor ask himself why it was that he was disturbed and unlike himself; but he recognized that such was the case, and accepted it without comment or question.