“Yes, sir, I calculated all that, but it would be a wonderful improvement to my paths, and they’d pay for doing.”
“I don’t want to spare the carts, Daniel Barnett; but I agree with you it would be a great improvement, and I want Mrs Mostyn to feel that you are doing justice to the place, so I suppose I must say yes.”
“Thank you, sir, thank you,” cried Barnett, for he could feel the strength of the encouragement, and knew how much it meant. “There,” he continued, rising very slowly and glancing at mother and daughter as he spoke, “I’ll start two men picking up the big path, and I s’pose you’ll be sending down the gravel almost any time.”
“They shall begin soon and get it over.”
“Thank you, sir; then I’ll say good-night now. Good-night, Mrs Ellis. Good-night, Miss Mary.”
“What, won’t you stop and have a bit of supper with us, Daniel?” said the bailiff.
Wouldn’t he! And “Daniel” too! He dropped down into his chair muttering something about its being very kind, and that he thought he wouldn’t mind a morsel, but he looked in vain for a welcoming smile from Mary, who, without a word, slowly left the room, and returned as silently as she went, but with fresh knives and forks, and a couple more plates.
“But she didn’t put ’em next to hers,” thought Daniel Barnett, most unreasonably, for there was the whole opposite side of the table at liberty, and she laid a place for him there.
It was of course what he had been looking for. He had come expecting to be asked to stay, and as soon as they were all seated he told himself that it was all right, and he stared hard at the gentle face across the table and started various topics of conversation, directed at Mary, her father good-humouredly helping him with a word now and then, while Mrs Ellis looked on and attended to the wants of her guest.
“Yes, she’s coming round at last,” thought Daniel Barnett; for, whenever she was addressed, Mary replied in a quiet, gentle way, and once entered into the conversation with some word of animation, making the bailiff look across the table at his wife, and give her a nod, as much as to say—