"You are burying yourself alive under a mistaken notion of self-sacrifice; and mark my words, I am no true prophet if you do not live to repent it."
"On the contrary, I intend to be very happy. Cathy is going to help me with my garden, and we mean to read German together."
"I hope you will allow your friends to subscribe for your funeral if the crust should prove not quite so sufficing as you imagine?"
"You need not fear anything so tragic; Emmie and I mean to flourish on our crusts as much as Daniel and the three children did on their pulse and water," returned Queenie gaily, whose spirits had risen now her formidable task was achieved. "I shall speak to them both to-morrow, and get it off my mind," she had said to Cathy the previous night, when they had discussed the grand question in all its bearings, under cover of the summer darkness, and with the scent of Langley's roses steeping the air. "There is no time to be lost; Mr. Logan is writing to Carlisle for a mistress, and I must speak to him at once."
Queenie's buoyancy had returned, but Garth remained silent. He had done his duty, and uttered his protest against this monstrous scheme, which, nevertheless, he was bound to further by all means in his power.
"Quixotic, absurd, girlish to the last degree," he muttered to himself, and yet he felt he respected and liked the girl all the better for her modest independence. Two days ago they had been strangers, and now they had entered on a mutual league of friendship and support. "I have promised to see you through this, so you may leave all business details to me," he said with a little condescension, which, in spite of everything, amused Queenie. "Half-measures are not in my line; if you want help from me you will be sure to get it," finished Garth; and Queenie felt amused and grateful in a breath.
Garth was a little silent after this; the young man felt an odd thrill, half painful and half pleasant, at the recognition of this new responsibility. This young stranger had unconsciously thrown herself upon his protection. In asking his advice she had appealed strongly to his generosity. To be sure, Queenie would not have read matters in this light, indeed, would have rebelled at such a statement; but Garth judged otherwise. Tenderness to all weakness was inherent in his nature; women, children, and animals always trusted themselves involuntarily to him; his shoulders were broad enough to incur a mass of responsibility that would have crushed most people. "It was Garth's chief happiness to help people," his sisters always said. True, he must help them in his own way, and they must submit to his good-natured dictates, flavored a little arbitratively perhaps; but his sympathy and ready help would always be forthcoming. No one ever appealed to Garth Clayton's generosity in vain.
He was silent for a long time after this, revolving all sorts of schemes for the sisters' benefit. Once or twice, as she sat beside him, he glanced at her with kindly scrutiny. "She was not much like a village school-mistress," he thought, as he noted the quiet, refined face, the pretty figure, the brown dress enlivened with the knot of white rose-buds, the hat with the pheasant's plume. "Where has she picked up that air of finish and elegance? it struck me from the first. I suppose some fellows would give anything to be in my place," thought the young philosopher, a little elated, and yet puzzled at his own position. "She is very unlike Dora, quite a contrast; they are neither of them pretty, at least not strictly so. Dora is the more attractive, but Miss Marriott's eyes are wonderful; I never saw any in the least like them, not that I concern myself about such matters," finished the patriarch of eight-and-twenty, pulling his moustache with an amused air.
But for all that he roused himself rather reluctantly as Cathy and Mr. Logan came towards them, dragging a large basket of ferns between them. Cathy looked hot and flushed, and just a trifle perturbed. She left her hold of the basket a little impatiently, and flung herself down by Queenie.
"How provokingly cool you two look. Here have Ted and I been working like galley-slaves, until Mr. Logan chose to come and break in on our work."