They went to the Hill at the time appointed, and the visit, and some others that they made, were so far successful that the minister took real pleasure in them, and that was more than could be said of any visit he had made before. Miss Betsey did not put him through his catechism in Clifton’s presence; that ceremony was reserved for a future occasion. She was rather stiff and formal in her reception of them, but she thawed out and consented to be pleased and interested before the after noon was over. She smiled and assented with sufficient graciousness when Clifton not only bespoke Ben’s company, on an expedition with gun and rod, which he and Mr Maxwell were going to make further down the river, but he invited himself and the minister to tea on their way home.
“For you know, Cousin Betsey, that Ben and I won’t be very likely to get into mischief in the minister’s company, and you can’t object to our going this time.”
“If anybody doesn’t object to the minister’s going in your company. That is the thing to be considered, I should say,” said Cousin Betsey, smiling grimly.
“Oh, cousin! do you mean that going fishing with me will compromise the minister? No wonder that you are afraid to trust me with Ben. But I say that a day in the woods with Ben and me will do Mr Maxwell more good than two or three tea-meetings or sewing-circles. Only you have a good supper ready for us, and I will bring him home hungry as a hunter.”
“Which hasn’t happened very often to him of late, if one may judge from his looks,” said Miss Betsey.
“No, he ought to be living here at the Hill. It would suit him better than Jacob’s. And when are you coming to see us? Lizzie wanted to come with us to-day, but she was afraid you wouldn’t be glad to see her. You never come to our house, and she mustn’t do all the visiting. And, besides, you don’t ask her.”
“It aint likely that she’ll be so hard up for something to amuse her, that she’ll want to fall back on a visit to the Hill. But if she should be, she can come along over, and try how it would seem to visit with mother and Cynthy and me. She’ll always find some of us here.”
“All right. I’ll tell her you asked her, and she’ll be sure to come.”
The success of this visit encouraged Clifton to try more in the minister’s company. For a reason that it was not difficult to understand, Jacob in his rounds had not taken him to visit at Mr Fleming’s, nor had any one else, and Clifton, remembering his own visit there, took the introduction of Mr Maxwell at Ythan Brae into his own hands, and Elizabeth went with him. They sailed up the river, and went through the woods as he and Ben had done. It was a lovely autumn day, but there were few tokens of decay in the woods and fields through which they took their way, and they lingered in the sweet air with a pleasure that made them unconscious of the flight of time, and the afternoon was far spent before they sat down to rest on the rocky knoll where Clifton in Ben’s company had renewed his acquaintance with the Fleming children. The remembrance of the time and the scene came back so vividly, that he could not help telling his companions about it. Elizabeth’s face clouded as he repeated Katie’s words about “those avaricious Holts” which had brought him to a sense of the indiscretion he was committing in listening.
“The Flemings are hard upon Jacob. Mr Maxwell might have been more fortunate in his escort,” said she.