"Yes sir—very well—" Faith said quietly, though she felt the ground uneasy and unsafe.
"Well what sort of a chap is he?—up to anything besides running away with all he can lay his hands on?"
"Don't you know him, Mr. Stoutenburgh?"
"Can't say I do, Miss Faith,—it rather strikes me he's not anxious I should."
"How can he be anxious, sir, when you are not?" said Mr. Linden. "Isn't that expecting too much?"
The Squire laughed.
"I don't expect too much of him," he said,—"and don't you expect too little. After all, I'd as soon take a boy's mind as a man's—and he aint popular among the boys. I thought he would be, after that exhibition—but he aint."
Which remark Mr. Linden knew to be true, though he did not say so.
"Well, Mr. Stoutenburgh! if you don't like him why do you talk about him?" said his wife. "Faith—you can play blind man's buff, I'm sure?"
"Wait a bit,—wait a bit," said the Squire—"I'm not ready to be blinded yet, if she is. You ladies are always in such a hurry! Now Mr. Linden and I want to have our ideas cleared up. What sort of a man is the doctor, Miss Faith? You say you know him 'very well,'—do you like him 'very much'?"