CHAPTER XV.
DAVID ROLLIN IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM.
Mrs. Philander Keeler grew kind. At first, especially while the fisherman was in Wallencamp, her demeanor towards me had been marked by a decided touch of coldness and mistrust. She suspected me, I thought, of trifling with the Cradlebow; now, she invariably deferred to me as a person worthy of all honor and consideration—of congratulation even, in an eminent degree.
She assumed to be on the most frank and confiding terms with me. She found a thousand little ways for promoting my physical comfort that had never occurred to her before.
So I was the more surprised, when after school, one Friday afternoon, as I was sitting in my room, this same Madeline suddenly appeared before me with her eyes glittering, her lips compressed, and her complexion of that positive green hue which it always wore when she was in a high passion.
"There's a gentleman down stairs, waiting to see you, teacher," she said, with a peculiarly dark inflection on the word gentleman. "Oh, he's got on an awful interesting look!" snapped out Madeline, with a spiteful little laugh; "and a suit of light clothes, and a new spring overcoat, and he looked at me as though I was a pane of window-glass, and he says, 'Oh—ah—yes—is Miss Hungerford in?' I wonder if he's come back to make his farewell calls—" with another unpleasant laugh. "One thing I can tell him, he'd better steer clear of George Olver!"
Was ever a zealous young devotee, I pondered, more perplexed!
"Come this way, please," I said, holding out my hand to Madeline; and leaning back in my chair with unaffected weariness, at least. "Is Mr. Rollin down stairs?"
"They call him that, I believe," said Madeline, sententiously; "things don't always get their right names in this world."
"Well, you may tell him," I said; "that I can't see him."