“Papa, when do you mean to come to luncheon?” cried Patricia.
Melmar started up, opened the window, cried “Get away, you little fool!—who wanted you?” and shook his fist at her menacingly. Poor Patricia sprang back in terror, and lost her breath immediately. She did not know, and perhaps if she had known, would not have appreciated, the great relief which this little ebullition was to Melmar. He went back quite refreshed to finish his fight; but his poor little daughter, who did not understand it, first fell a-crying, and then, drying her eyes, proceeded to revenge herself. She sought out Joanna immediately, and informed that heroine of something extraordinary and mysterious going on in the study—and of the unaccountable and inexcusable affront to herself, “before Mr. Cassilis!” which Patricia could not forgive. Luncheon was ordered immediately, half an hour before its time, and Joanna herself went off to the study like a gale of wind, to order papa into the dining-room. But the scene had changed by this time in Melmar’s private apartment. Mr. Cassilis was writing when Joanna entered, while her father stood by him holding some papers, and looking, stealthily watchful, over the young man’s shoulder, so like an old brindled big cat in the most feline concentration of vigilance, that Joanna’s irreverent imagination was tickled with the resemblance.
“Eh, papa,” cried the girl, with a sudden laugh, “I would not like to be a mouse in your way!—but Mr. Cassilis is too big for a mouse,” added Joanna; “come to luncheon, it’s ready—but I don’t believe Patricia will ever speak to you again—what are these?”
“No business of yours, you gipsy!” said Melmar, as she pulled at his papers.
“Eh, but it is—I can see Norlaw’s name!” cried Joanna; “Mr. Cassilis, tell Mrs. Livingstone that we know—and that I think shame of papa!—and if it was not that I could not help it, I never, never, would have spoken to him again! What are you getting all these papers for? If it’s to hurt the boys you shanna take them out of Melmar! You sha’n’t, whatever he may say!”
“Softly—Mr. Huntley of Melmar will hurt the Livingstones no more,” said Cassilis.
Meanwhile Melmar read the young lawyer’s receipt for these precious bits of paper with no very pleasant face. It was a great deal too carefully worded to be of any ulterior service. Even the pettifogging ingenuity of the “old school” did not see at present any capabilities in it.
CHAPTER XX.
On the afternoon of the same day the young lawyer dropped in quietly, with a smile on his lace, to Norlaw.
Huntley was busy in the out-buildings of the farm. He was taking an inventory of all their stock and belongings, and making such an estimate as he could, which was a very correct one on the whole, of the value of this primitive property. Every thing about the house was going on very much as usual. The Mistress was seated at the end window of the dining-room, in a position which not only commanded the kitchen door and all its comings and goings, but was likewise a good post of observation for the farm-yard in which Huntley was. The stillness and heat of summer brooded over the old castle walls, and even over the farm-yard, where the very poultry drowsed in their afternoon siesta. The apples were growing ruddy on the Norlaw trees, and the slope of the hill brightened in russet gold towards the harvest. An Irish “shearer,” with his sickle over his shoulder, waited at a humble distance, till the young master was ready to hear his application for work; the weather was unusually favorable and the season early. In another week or ten days everybody prophesied the harvest would begin.