"I am Pierson Barnes. I live to Quarrenton for a year back. Squire Joshua Springer's your uncle, ain't he?"
"Yes, my father's uncle."
"Well he's mine too. His sister's my mother."
"I'll send somebody to help you, Mr. Barnes."
She took Mr. Carleton's arm and walked half the way up to the house without daring to look at him.
"Another specimen of your countrymen," he said smiling.
There was nothing but quiet amusement in the tone, and there was not the shadow of anything else in his face. Fleda looked, and thanked him mentally, and drew breath easier. At the house door he made a pause.
"You are coming in, Mr. Carleton?"
"Not now."
"It is a long drive to Greenfield, Mr. Carleton;--you must not turn away from a country house till we have shewn ourselves unworthy to live in it. You will come in and let us give you something more substantial than those Quarrenton oysters. Do not say no," she said earnestly as she saw a refusal in his eye,--"I know what you are thinking of, but they do not know that you have been told anything--it makes no difference."