A little touch of pride, mingled with a frank desire not to sail into society under false colours, made young Martyn say, in answer to Louise's kindly cross-questioning—
"Oh no, I don't live here; my home is a hundred miles away; I am, really, only a servant."
"To be a servant, under some masters, is a very high position," Louise answered quickly. "May I hope that you are a servant of the great King?"
Then you should have seen Carey Martyn's gray eyes flash.
"I believe I am," he said proudly. "I wear his uniform, and I try to serve him."
"Then we are brother and sister," said Louise. "Let us shake hands in honour of the relationship," and she held out her fair hand and grasped the roughened one, and the young man's heart warmed, and his face brightened as it hardly had since he left his mother.
[CHAPTER XVII.]
FIRST FRUITS.
"LEWIS," said his wife, as she came to him in the hall, robed for walking, "I have a little plan: I want you to walk home with Dorothy to-night, and let me go with John; I would like to have a talk with him. But more than that, I want you to have a talk with Dorothy, and you never get opportunity to see her alone."
"O Louise!" said her husband, undisguised dismay in voice and manner; yet he tried to disguise it—he did not want her to know how entirely he shrank from such a plan.