"It is not Robert's fault at all, I tell you, Doctor Jim!" she cried, forgetting that she had said nothing whatever on the subject. "I just met him, an hour or two ago, on an old raft; and he knew who I was; and because he was getting his feet wet on the raft, I invited him to get into the canoe; and I made him promise to paddle me just wherever I wanted to go. So there! And it is not his fault one bit! And you may do what you like to me, but I won't have him punished when he has not done anything at all!"
Doctor John tried to look quite grave; and Doctor Jim, who was really annoyed, succeeded.
"Oh, ho! young man!" he remarked, sarcastically, "it appears that you have a champion. Now, what have you to say for yourself?"
"Mistress Barbara has neglected to add," said he, with all the dignity that he could assume, "that I insisted upon her narrating to me all the unhappy circumstances of her life in Second Westings. The story commanded my fullest sympathy, and I had just given her my word that I would aid her in escaping to her uncle, Mr. Glenowen, where she would be happy, when you came and violently interfered with her purpose. I ask you, sir, to consider. Are you not ashamed to be instrumental in restoring a young lady to conditions where she has been made to suffer so cruelly?"
In spite of his indignation, Robert could not help feeling proud of this effort. In his own ears it sounded imposing, unanswerable, and altogether grown up. Barbara thought it was a miracle of eloquence, and cast him a grateful look. But Doctor John could not conceal his delight in the stilted periods. He burst into a huge guffaw, at which Barbara's eyes snapped and Robert's dark skin reddened angrily. But Doctor Jim exclaimed, hotly:
"Hoity-toity! How big we do feel! To think how often I dandled you on my knee when you were a mewling baby. If I had but known enough to spank you once in awhile, you might not have grown up to be such a priggish young coxcomb. Richard's son! Who would have thought it? Eh, what?"
Meanwhile the boat and canoe were drifting rapidly down-stream. Doctor John looked at the sun, now touching the horizon.
"Don't you think, Master Gault," said he, drily, "that unless you propose to honour us with your company to Second Westings, we had better set you ashore hereabouts, that you may stretch your legs in the direction of Gault House?"
"Thank you!" said Robert, stiffly, his heart bursting with humiliation and the longing to strangle his huge, supercilious antagonist. But Barbara interrupted.
"I'm not going back to Second Westings!" she declared obstinately, trying hard to set her full red lips together in the resolute way that Robert's had. "I will never go back to live with Aunt Hitty. I'll drown myself first. I'm going to Uncle Bob, at Stratford."