“I can’t stay a moment,” answered Nash Caromel, turning his good-looking face to speak: and it cannot be denied it was a good-looking face, or that he was an attractive man. “Miles has sent me to that cattle sale up yonder, and I am full late.”
With a smile and a nod, he stepped lightly onwards, his slender supple figure, of middle height, upright as a dart; his fair hair waving in the breeze. Charlotte Tinkle glanced shyly after him, her cheeks blushing like a peony.
“What’s this I hear, young lady?—that you and Mr. Nash yonder want to make a match of it, in spite of pastors and masters?” began the Squire. “Is it true?”
Charlotte stood like a goose, making marks on the dusty path with the end of her large grass-green parasol. Parasols were made for use then, not show.
“Nash has nothing, you know,” went on the Squire. “No money, no house, no anything. There wouldn’t be common sense in it, Charlotte.”
“I tell him so, sir,” answered Charlotte, lifting her shy brown eyes for a moment.
“To be sure; that’s right. Here’s your mother fretting herself into fiddlestrings for fear of—of—I hardly know what.”
“Lest you should be tempted to forget your duty to me, Lottie,” struck in the mother. “Ah, my dear! you young people little think what trouble and anxiety you bring upon us.”
Charlotte Tinkle suddenly burst into tears, to the surprise of her beholders. Drying them up as soon as she could, she spoke with a sigh.
“I hope I shall never bring trouble upon you, mother, never; I wouldn’t do it willingly for the world. But——”