"No, I will take the nearest. When a young lady is affable enough to read aloud to you, the least you can do is to listen to her. That is a deference you owe to the author, when it happens to be Hawthorne, to say nothing of the young lady."
"But I have been listening, Margaret. Every word!"
"Where did I leave off?"
"It was where--where the"--and Richard knitted his brows in the vain effort to remember--"where the young daguerreotypist, what's-his-name, took up his residence in the House of the Seven Gables."
"No, sir! You stand convicted. It was ten pages further on. The last words were,"--and Margaret read from the book,--
"'Good-night, cousin,' said Phoebe, strangely affected by Hepsibah's manner. 'If you being to love me, I am glad.'"
"There, sir! what do you say to that?"
Richard did not say anything, but he gave a guilty start, and shot a rapid glance at Margaret coolly enjoying her triumph.
"In the next place," she continued soberly, after a pause, "I think it very odd in you not to reply to me,--oh, not now, for of course you are without a word of justification; but at other times. Frequently, when I speak to you, you look at me so," making a vacant little face, "and then suddenly disappear,--I don't mean bodily, but mentally."
"I am no great talker at best," said Richard with a helpless air. "I seldom speak unless I have something to say."