Thinking thus, she peeped here and there, but saw no one in yard or barn, except a workman scraping the mould off his boots near the conservatory.
“This David is among the flowers, I fancy; I will just ask, and not bolt in, as he does not know me. “Where is Mr. Sterling?” added Christie aloud, as she approached.
The man looked up, and a smile came into his eyes, as he glanced from the old hood to the young face inside. Then he took off his hat, and held out his hand, saying with just his mother’s simple directness:
“I am David; and this is Christie Devon, I know. How do you do?”
“Yes; dinner’s ready,” was all she could reply, for the discovery that this was the “master,” nearly took her breath away. Not the faintest trace of the melancholy Jaques about him; nothing interesting, romantic, pensive, or even stern. Only a broad-shouldered, brown-bearded man, with an old hat and coat, trousers tucked into his boots, fresh mould on the hand he had given her to shake, and the cheeriest voice she had ever heard.
What a blow it was to be sure! Christie actually felt vexed with him for disappointing her so, and could not recover herself, but stood red and awkward, till, with a last scrape of his boots, David said with placid brevity:
“Well, shall we go in?”
Christie walked rapidly into the house, and by the time she got there the absurdity of her fancy struck her, and she stifled a laugh in the depths of the little pumpkin-hood, as she hung it up. Then, assuming her gravest air, she went to give the finishing touches to dinner.
Ten minutes later she received another surprise; for David appeared washed, brushed, and in a suit of gray,—a personable gentleman, quite unlike the workman in the yard.
Christie gave one look, met a pair of keen yet kind eyes with a suppressed laugh in them, and dropped her own, to be no more lifted up till dinner was done.