“Haven’t they?” he said; “never mind. I dare say your father is in.”
“Father is not in, Mr. Paul. He’s gone to tell Fraser, the Scotchman, to come. He didn’t know there was a meeting. I am the only one that is in to keep the house. The girls have gone to the circus—did you know there was a circus?—but I,” said Janet, “I don’t care for such things. I’ve stayed at home.”
Then there was a pause. Paul had gone into the shop, which was swept, and arranged with benches, and a table in the middle, for the emigrants’ meeting, and Janet following him so far as to stand in the inner instead of the outer doorway, stood gazing at him by the imperfect light of the lamp. How could she help gazing at him? She expected him to say something. This was not how he had looked at her in the morning. Poor Janet was disappointed to the bottom of her heart.
“That’s a pity,” said Paul, brusquely. “If I had known Spears would not be here I should not have come so soon. I don’t see why he should keep me waiting for him. I have a thousand things to do; all my time is taken up. I might have been with my father, who is ill, if I had not come here.”
“Oh, is he ill?” said Janet. Her eyes grew bigger in the dim light gazing at him. “It must be very strange to be a gentleman’s son like that,” she added softly; “and to think what a difference it might make all at once if—— And you never can tell what may happen,” she concluded with a sigh of excitement. “I don’t wonder you’re in a way.”
“Am I in a way? I don’t think so,” said Paul. “I hope there is nothing much the matter with my father,” he added, after a little pause.
“Oh!” said Janet, disappointed; but she added, “There will be some time. Some time or other you will be a great man, with a title and all that property. Oh, I wanted to say one thing to you before those men come. What in the world have you to do with them, Mr. Paul? They may think themselves ill-used, but you can’t think yourself ill-used. Why should you go away when you have everything, everything you can set your face to, at home? Plenty of money, and a grand house, and horses and carriages, and all sorts of things. You can understand folks doing it that have nothing; but a gentleman like you that only need to wish and have, whatever can you want to emigrate for?” Janet cried.
CHAPTER IX.
Spears entered the shop suddenly, before Janet had quite ended her astonishing address. If his dog had offered him advice Paul could scarcely have been more surprised. He was standing at one end of the shop gazing at her, his eyes wide opened with surprise, and consternation in his mind, when her father came in. Spears was not so much astonished as Paul was. He saw his daughter standing in the doorway, her colourless face a little flushed by her earnestness, and gaining much in beauty from that heightened tint, and from the meaning in it. Spears thought within himself that it was true what all the romancers said, that there was nothing like love for embellishing a woman, and that his Janet had never looked so handsome before. But that was all. He had come in by a back way, bringing with him the Scotchman, Fraser, who was to be one of the colonists, and therefore could not make any remark upon the conjunction of these two, or upon the few words he heard her saying. What so natural as that she should be found lingering about the place where Paul was expected, or that he should take her opinion, however foolish it might be?
“Come, you two,” Spears said, good-humouredly, “no more of this—there is a time for everything;” and Janet, with a start, with one anxious look at Paul to see what effect her eloquence was having, went slowly away.