"I really can't. Besides, in a matter of so much importance, I think she is right not to act without seeing her father, or, at least, hearing directly from him."
"Well, I must take my leave," said he. "And I may as well tell you it is a mere mystification; I have no authority, and no wish to disturb your stay at Malory; and we are not particularly likely ever to meet again; and you'll forgive an old fellow his joke, young ladies?"
With these brusque and eccentric sentences, he raised his hat, and with the activity of a younger man, ran up the bank at the side of the road; and, on the summit, looked about him for a moment, as if he had forgotten us altogether; and then, at his leisure, he descended at the other side and was quite lost to view.
Laura Grey and I were both staring in the direction in which he had just disappeared. Each, after a time, looked in her companion's face.
"I almost think he's mad!" said Miss Grey.
"What could have possessed Mr. Carmel to introduce such a person to us?" I exclaimed. "Did you hear his name?" I asked, after we had again looked in the direction in which he had gone, without discovering any sign of his return.
"Droqville, I think," she answered.
"Oh! Laura, I am so frightened! Do you think papa can really intend any such thing? He's too kind. I am sure it is a falsehood."
"It is a joke, he says himself," she answered. "I can't help thinking a very odd joke, and very pointless; and one that did not seem to amuse even himself."
"Then you do not think it is true?" I urged, my panic returning.