"It's good you want Mr. Skip, for I don't," said the Squire, stiffening a little. "Is that one of the new-fashioned ways of saying you won't go, Miss Faith?"
"What's your objection to Mr. Skip?" said Faith pleasantly. "I am glad nobody else wants him, for we do."
"Well, I say I'm glad you've got him," said the Squire, relenting under the power of Faith's voice. "But what ails you Miss Faith, to go tackin' round like one o' them schooners against the wind? Aint it a straight question as to whether you'll take an excursion to Mattabeeset?"
"Very straight," said Faith smiling and speaking gently. "And I thought
I gave a straight answer."
"Blessed if I can see which road it took!" said Squire Deacon,—"save and except it didn't seem to be the right one. 'No' 's about as ugly a road as a man can foller. Guess I spoke too late, after all," said the Squire meditatively. "How's your furr'n news, Mr. Linden? Get it regular?"
"Yes—" said Mr. Linden,—"making due allowance for the irregularity of the steamers."
Faith looked up in no little astonishment, and took the eye as well as the ear effect of this question and answer; then said quietly,
"Have you any business in the post-office, Mr. Deacon?"
"Not a great deal, Miss Faith," said the Squire, with a blandness on one side of his face which but poorly set off the other. "I go down for the paper once a week, and 'lection times maybe oftener, but I don't do much in the letter line. Correspondence never was my powder magazine. I shouldn't know where to put two or three femin_ine_ letters a week—if I got 'em."
If he had got what somebody wanted to give him at that moment!—Squire Deacon little knew what risk he ran, nor how much nearer he was to a powder magazine than he ever had been in his life.