"You and another. Ha! you did not know that! I can read it in your face. Your back was scarcely turned, when out there bounced from behind a tree--a man!--that tall slim young fellow you must have noticed at the Beach any time this last week. He has been devoting himself to that little spare woman with the blue veil whom nobody seems to mind. People said they were engaged, and wondered at one with his good looks bestowing himself so cheaply. Well, as I was saying, out he bounced upon Miss--what's her name?--Miss Hillyard; and I can tell you their interview was an animated one. How the colour of both came and went! There must a great deal have taken place between them. How he gesticulated! She was comparatively calm. He is an ardent fellow, I can tell you, Joseph. Better have an eye on him."
Joseph did not know exactly what to say. He felt himself disloyal in listening; but still he was interested, and if he waited to hear more, he fancied he should be better able to defend Rose.
"The lady he had left--her with the blue veil--seemed to take her squire's sudden desertion in very bad part. She started and looked shocked at his departure, then bent forward where she sat, and looked, and listened. They were within a few yards of her, and she must have heard all that passed. The disillusion must have been terrible. I saw her head bow lower and lower, as though all fortitude were deserting her; and soon she seemed utterly crushed. She buried her head in her lap, and clasped her hands above it--a most pitiable spectacle.
"But that was not the worst. He certainly must be a man without pity or a spark of feeling. He actually had the cruelty to lead the other a little to one side, where she could have a view of the discarded rival. Was it not barbarous? This was too much for the other. It stung her into something like proper self-respect. As soon as the other turned away--and I will do the Hillyard girl the justice to say that she betrayed no sign of gratification at her rival's confusion--she jumped to her feet with a little cry, tied on her hat, and ran away up the hill, as if to hide herself among the trees. Then Miss Rose seemed suddenly to remember about you. She dismissed her admirer with the peremptory assurance of an old hand, who knows exactly what she means to do, and strolled calmly across the sands to meet you coming back to her. She must have managed very well. I saw her leaning on your arm as friendly as possible--a clever girl, but a sad handful, I should imagine, for the man whose doubtful fortune it may be to get her for a wife."
"And now you have done, Susan, with your romance? Let me congratulate you on your talent for 'putting that and that together,' and producing a coherent fiction from true premisses, which might do credit to the author of the 'Arabian Nights.'"
"And pray, if the premisses are true, and nothing of my own is added, how can you venture to suppose that my inferences are astray? You are infatuated, Joseph Naylor."
"My good creature, the young lady has told me of this interview with the tall young man which you have described so graphically. It must indeed have been exciting and full of emotion, but you have entirely failed to catch its true import; and, as far as I can see, there is no reason why you should understand it, either you or any of the twenty other eavesdroppers you mention, who have been gratuitously interesting themselves in what does not concern them. Miss Hillyard is suffering from violent headache in consequence of what occurred, and has returned to the village to lie down. On second thoughts, I believe I shall follow her, and try if she will not let me drive her back to the Beach at once. That will be better than encountering the twenty pairs of curious eyes during the evening, who will want to watch her every movement, and piece a romance out of every time she looks at her watch. Goodbye, Susan. Accept thanks for kind intentions on my account; but do, pray, be more charitable in future. Good-bye, Margaret. I am going back at once, and shall be asleep when you get home. Kiss me good-night, child."
Margaret rose to pay the dutiful salute. Joseph kissed her on the cheek, and finding his lips so conveniently near her ear, he whispered--
"Walter's buggy will be the first in the line. He will be waiting. Get down before the others. Jump in; and God bless you!"
Margaret changed colour violently. Her mother, looking on, was surprised to see an embrace from an old uncle, produce signs of emotion. "It must be because of the young man sitting by," she thought sapiently, and drew happy auguries from the circumstance. Those close observers are so often astray!