[CHAPTER XIV.]
WITH THE OLD ONES.
"The fresh salt breezes mingle with the smell
Of clover fields and ripened hay beside;
And Nature, musing, happy and serene,
Hath here for willing man her sweetest spell."
J. F. H.
After lunch, the Sleeping Water party separated. The Pitres found some old friends from up the Bay. Agapit wandered away with some young men, and Vesper, lazily declining to saunter with them, stood leaning against a tree behind a bench on which his mother and Rose were seated.
The latter received and exchanged numerous greetings with her acquaintances who passed by, sometimes detaining them for an introduction to Mrs. Nimmo, who was making a supreme effort to be gracious and agreeable to the woman that the fates had apparently destined to be her daughter-in-law.
Vesper looked on, well pleased. "Why do you not introduce me?" he said, mischievously, while his mother's attention was occupied with two Acadien girls.
Rose gave him a troubled glance. She took no pleasure in his presence now,—his mother had spoiled all that, and, although naturally simple and unaffected, she was now tortured by self-consciousness.
"I think that you do not care," she said, in a low voice.