"Oh, hush! please do," whispered Liddy, hurriedly. "Miss Dorry'll hear you. I only meant that you and I both know that he's been hanging about these parts for a week or more, and that his presence doesn't bode any good. Why, you noticed it before anybody else. Besides, I want her to sleep. The darling child! She's feeling worse than she lets on, I'm afraid, though I rubbed her back with liniment to make sure. Please don't talk any more about things now. To-morrow I'll ask your uncle if—"
"No, you needn't, thank you, Liddy," interrupted Don, "I'll speak to him myself."
"Oh my! When?"
"I don't know. When I get ready," he replied, laughing in spite of himself at Lydia's hopeless way of putting the question. "It is sure to come soon. I've had pulls at this tangle from time to time without getting a fair hold of it. But I intend to straighten it out before long, or know the reason why."
"Sakes! What an air he has, to be sure!" thought Liddy, as Donald moved away. "The fact is, that boy's getting big. We older folks'll think of them as children to the end of our days; but it's true as sky and water. And it's even more so with Miss Dorry. Those twins are getting older, as sure as I live!"
Monday evening came, and with it the "long, lank man." He did not come before half-past nine; and then, to Lydia's great disappointment (for she had rather enjoyed the luxury of dreading this mysterious visit), he rang the door-bell like any other visitor, and asked, familiarly, for Mr. Reed.
"Mr. Reed is at home, sir," responded Liddy, in a tone of cold disapprobation.
"All right. You're the housekeeper, I s'pose?"
Trembling within, but outwardly calm, silent, and majestic, Liddy threw open the study-door, and saw Mr. Reed rise to receive his guest.