“You need not apologize,” she said, smiling. “I am getting to be a pretty old maid, and that gives me privileges. I think I like Mr. Carington’s friend”; and she said to herself, “You are a dear, shrewdly simple little man.”
Then he thanked her, blushing as he rose, and saying:
“Now, I must go and get a fish.”
As for Rose, she began to feel that it was rather nice of Mr. Carington to be in no haste to come after the inevitable gratitude; but when a pleasant note came to Mrs. Lyndsay inclosing the flies, she began also to have a certain amount of curiosity as to the man in question, much, I suppose, like the beginning of that same fatal emotion which in the end causes the salmon to inspect at closer quarters the provocative Jock Scott or Durham ranger.
It was now near the end of their second week, and the after part of the third day from that which saw the drama of the bear and cub. Rose had killed two salmon in the morning, and, not having altogether gotten over the loss of blood, had declined to fish again in the afternoon. Anne was in her room, the mother out in the boat with Mr. Lyndsay, and the boys off to dig up the unhappy woodchuck. Rose had the pleasant feeling of having the house to herself. She took a volume of Lowell, and, settling herself in the hammock, was soon so deep in the delicate analysis of Gray that she did not observe the coming canoe, until of a sudden Carington was beside her.
“Good evening, Miss Lyndsay.”
Rose made the usual awkward effort to rise from her comfortable nest, saying, “I am like the starling, I can’t get out.”
“Permit me,” he said, and, with the help of his hand, she was on her feet.
“Upon my word,” she laughed, “you seem to be essential to the getting me out of scrapes. I am, I was, always shall be hopelessly in your debt,” and she blushed prettily, feeling that she had been less formal than she had meant to be. “Pray sit down,” she added, taking a camp-stool.
“Thanks. Don’t you think that to give a man such a chance to oblige people like—like your father and mother—rather puts the sense of obligation on the other side?”