Harry smiled blandly on the partition for three whole days. At the close of the third day, when Susan and Joanna were brushing their hair together, Susan started the proposal that they should return to the Ewes whenever Mrs. Jardine's inventories, and settling and sorting of accounts, were brought to an end; "because, Joanna, Harry is getting cross; I am sure of it; he is not half so agreeable as he was the first night. I think he is angry because his mother keeps you to herself, and sends me to talk to him and give him music. When I come to think of it, it is a very senseless plan of hers, and perhaps she is spiteful though she is so attentive, and I am not frightened at her any longer. She is a quick woman, but as pleasant as possible; but if you please, Joanna, you can be shut up with her, and go out with her till we leave, for I should not care for it very much, and I see no call for it on my part; and I am certain we had better fix on going home again as soon as we can manage it."
"Very well, Susan; only you speak very fast; I can scarcely follow you. It strikes me you are wrong on one point. I never noticed that Harry Jardine was tired of being your host, or that he minded who sat next him."
"Not tired of me exactly, or careless of my enjoyment, because, to be sure, Harry Jardine is courting all of us. Nonsense, Joanna, you need not affect to be sage and precise and unconcerned. I am not so silly, and it is very conceited of you, and I have no patience with you. Of course I was not blind and deaf, and I have not lost my memory. Harry Jardine is continually looking after you, whatever his mother persuades herself. He never notices what I wear, and he remembered ribbons you wore months since. I put on mine, and he looked at it and said, 'That is like one of Joanna's; is it not?' Now I know very well he never calls any of us by our Christian names to other people, and only you to one or other of us, and he does it pointedly, as if to express, 'I mean to be your brother-in-law one of these days, and I want to keep you in mind of my intentions, so I take the liberty.'"
"Why don't you say, 'Mr. Jardine, Joanna does not like a liberty taken with her name'?"
"I dare say! and have him reply, 'Did Joanna tell me so herself?' I believe he would be only too glad to have you speak to him on any subject, and I put him into such a fume about your appearance, Jack! Of course, I intended no harm, the words came out somehow. You remember, last night, his showing me an engraving he had bought. 'Tell me some one that is like,' he said to me. It was the least in the world like you, or like your mode of dressing your hair, but it flattered you, as these chance likenesses always do. 'Is it a little like Joanna?' I asked trying him; and I continued, 'Our Joanna would be rather a pretty girl if it were not for the blemish;' and there I stopped short, for I recollected that I should not have mentioned it to him. I wish you had seen him, how hot and haughty he was, as if you were not my own sister, and as if I had not more business with you than he had yet. 'I wonder how any one who has any regard for Joanna can term that mark a defect: it is very sacred and beautiful, otherwise Joanna is without spot'—and there he caught himself and turned away—he was about to add, 'or wrinkle or any such thing,' and I am afraid it was a quotation from the Bible; but I fancy he felt that he was making a fool of himself, and held his tongue. We ought to speak of going home."
"Susie, dear, don't be unreasonable; you know what a claim this family has upon ours; you know what papa desires."
"I know nothing except that Harry Jardine wants me out of his way, and you in his way. It is very disagreeable to me, and a great responsibility to me. You are an interested party, you cannot be expected to see things as you should."
"Why not? I told you to correct him when he was wrong. But I thought you were great friends; and poor Mrs. Jardine, Susan, I can be of use to her in her adversity. I can do things for her as I do for—"
"As you do for papa; there is a fine confession!"
Joanna ensconced herself in silence. Susan had provocation, but Joanna took great care next day not to support Harry Jardine in his levity and discontent. All the morning she spent with Mrs. Jardine; she pinned herself to her sleeve until, after luncheon, she was taken by the old lady into her own room, with its bright fire and shining dogs, its broad, easy couch, its table, with the handsome ponderous writing-desk, flanking the handsome heavy dressing-case, and its look-out from the warmly-curtained windows quite across the moor.