“There, how clumsy I am!” he exclaimed, picking up the fallen package, and nearly striking his head against Jessie’s, as, flushed and agitated, she stooped too. “Well, aunt dear, how are you?”
“Oh, I’m well enough,” said Mrs Shingle tartly, as she stretched a piece of silk between her fingers and her teeth, and made it twang like a guitar string. “What do you want here?”
“What do I want, aunt? All right, Jessie—I’ll tie the string. Thought I’d come in and carry Jessie’s parcel.”
“Oh, there!” exclaimed the girl.
“Now, look here, Mr Tom Fraser,” said Mrs Shingle, holding up her needle as if it were a weapon of offence: “you two have been planning this.”
“Mother!” cried Jessie.
“Oh no, we did not, aunt,” cried the young man; “it was all my doing. No, no, Jessie—I’ll carry the parcel.”
“No, no, Tom; indeed you must not.”
“I should think not, indeed!” cried Mrs Shingle, who, as she glanced from one to the other, and thought of her own early days, plainly read the love that was growing up between the young people; but could not see that her first visitor, Fred, had come back, and was standing gazing, with a sallow, vicious look upon his face, at what was going on inside, before going off with his teeth set and an ugly glare in his eyes.
“Tom Fraser,” continued the lady of the house, “I mean Mr Tom—Mr Thomas Fraser—you ought to be ashamed of yourself, to behave in this way. You quite the gentleman, and under Government, and coming to poor peopled houses, and wanting to carry parcels, and all like a poor errand-boy!”