“Yes, he will have to know then. I fear he will feel badly about losing the place, Margey.”
“Yes.” Margaret looked through the window across the morning landscape. “Yes,” she repeated, “I know he will. But——” She didn’t finish the sentence, but went back to her work with a little sigh. Daphne bore the tray away and for several minutes the room was still. Then Mrs. Ryerson withdrew her gaze from the outside world and glanced across at her daughter and smiled as though at her thoughts.
“Don’t you think that he is very good looking, Margey?”
“Phil?”
“No, dear, Mr. North.”
“M—yes,” answered Margaret, in the tone of one considering a question for the first time.
“And you like him, don’t you?”
“I reckon I do,” was the reply. “Anyhow, I don’t dislike him. Of course, Phil thinks he’s very wonderful, and I reckon that’s enough, don’t you? We needn’t all fall down and worship, need we?”
“My dear,” said Mrs. Ryerson, mildly, aggrievedly, “I certainly said nothing about worshiping him. I do think he’s an extremely handsome young man, with grand eyes, and a perfect gentleman if ever there was one; quite like a Virginian. And he has been very kind to Phil, dear, and—and——”
“Of course he has,” Margaret hastened to say, “and I’ll promise to love him dearly, mamma. Only—” she bent and bit off a thread—“I do wish he hadn’t quite such an assured way of talking and doing things—just as though he couldn’t do anything out of the way or say anything that wasn’t just right.”