It was a roundabout way to compliment Hattie, but Frank, in his innocence, didn’t know how else to do it. Some men are so awkward, you know.
“Did Miss Scrimp carry on much after I came away?” asked Jessie.
“She commenced it, but I very promptly hushed it. She said she would like to kill me.”
“And so she would if she dared. But she is an old coward, Miss Hattie. No one but a coward would beat a helpless girl as she used to beat me.”
“That is true, and were it not for publicity, I would make her suffer for it to the full extent of the law,” said Mrs. Emory. “But, Miss Hattie, you ought not to stay another day in that house. Do come here to stay with us. You need never work again. If you will only come and be Jessie’s sister you will overflow the cup of joy already full.”
“It cannot be at present, Mrs. Emory, though I thank you from my heart. Three years ago I laid out a certain course, for good reasons, which I hope yet to be able to explain to you all, my kind friends, and I cannot change that course until an event, which I hope and pray for, takes place. Then, perhaps, you will think all the more of me for the course I have taken.”
“We have no right to ask more, Miss Hattie,” said Mr. Legare. “I, for one, have every faith in the purity of your motives in all things.”
Hattie could but be pleased with all these attentions.
After lunch the ladies adjourned to the sitting-room, while Mr. Legare went to his library. Frank, with his new ideas of diplomacy, asked Lizzie if she and Miss Hattie wouldn’t take just a little dash with him in his phaeton behind his thoroughbreds.
Lizzie had been out with him once or twice, been choked with dust or covered with mud, and she felt no desire to try it again. She said she preferred the family coach and steady driving.