“I want to say a word to you, please.”
And without condescending to perceive William Maubray, who had raised his hat, she said, with an appearance of excitement not of a pleasant kind, and in presence of which somehow the young lady’s heart sunk with a sudden misgiving—
“We’ll go up, my dear, to my room, I’ve a word to say, and I think Mr. Kincton Knox, as you ask me what you shall do, you may as well, in this instance, as usual, do nothing. I’ll write. I’ll do it myself. Come, Clara.”
So, suspending questions until the apartment up stairs was reached, the young lady, in silence and with a very grave face, accompanied her mother.
“Charming day—sweet day—we shall soon have the storms, though—they must come; we had them ten days earlier last year. Will you come with me to the Farm-road plantation, and give me your ideas about what I’m going to do?”
And the old gentleman came down the two steps from the glass door upon the closely-shorn grass, looking a little red, but smiling kindly, for he saw no reason for what his wife intended, and thought the young man was about to be treated unfairly, and felt a liking for him.
“No; she can’t come down again; I know her mother wants her, so you may as well come with me.”
So off they set together, and I dare say William liked that ramble better than he would have done the other. The old man was sociable, genial, and modest, and had taken rather late in life, tempted thereto, no doubt, by solitude, to his books, some of which, such as “Captain Lemuel Gulliver’s Travels,” were enigmatical, and William was able to throw some lights which were new to the elderly student, who conceived a large and honest admiration for his young friend, and would have liked to see a great deal more of him than he was quite sure Mrs. Kincton Knox would allow.
In the course of their walk, William Maubray observed that he seemed even more than usually kindly, and once or twice talked a little mysteriously of women’s caprices, and told him not to mind them; and told him also when he was at Oxford he had got once or twice a little dipped—young fellows always do—and he wanted to know—he was not, of course, to say a word about it—if fifty pounds would be of any use to him—he’d be so happy, and he could pay him any time, in ten years or twenty for that matter, for the old gentleman dimly intended to live on indefinitely.
But William did not need this kindly help, and when his pleasant ramble with the old man and his dogs was over, and he returned to the “school-room,” William found a note awaiting him on the table, in the large-hand of Mrs. Kincton Knox.