“If you care for me or for your own happiness, don’t have anything to say to him,” said Adam, earnestly. “He bears none of us any love, and depend on’t he means mischief.”
Chapter Twenty Nine.
Making the Grotto.
Harry had paid several visits to Downside. The old ladies welcomed him cordially, and were much pleased at the interest he took in their grotto.
“It got on rapidly,” they observed, with the assistance he so kindly gave May. She received him as a relative of the ladies without supposing that had she not been his fellow-labourer he might not have taken so great an interest in the work. Frequently Miss Jane and Miss Mary were present, but sometimes they sent May and Harry by themselves, and only followed when at leisure. Those moments were very delightful to the young people. They did not perhaps hurry on with the grotto as fast as they might otherwise have done, and when the ladies arrived they had not always made much progress. Yet Harry believed that he said nothing to May which he would not have been willing for his cousins to hear, and probably had he been accused of making love to the fisherman’s daughter, he would indignantly have denied that he was doing so. She did not stop to enquire why she felt unusually dull when he did not come, or why her ear was so eagerly on the watch for the sound of his horse’s hoofs at the hour he generally arrived.
Every day Harry fancied that he had discovered new graces in her mind, and the slight degree of rusticity which he might have first detected when he compared her with his sister Julia, had entirely worn off. In person he thought her faultless.
Harry was anxious that his mother and sister should see May without knowing who she was—he was sure that the Miss Pembertons would be pleased at receiving a visit from them, and he was in hopes that he might be able to induce them to call without showing his anxiety that they would do so. He made no secret at home of his visits to Downside, observing that the Miss Pembertons had employed him to ornament a shell grotto for them, and as he hated to be idle, he was very glad to find employment suited to his taste, and at the same time to do anything to please the kind old ladies.
Sir Ralph had been called to London on political business, and was likely to remain some time away. Most of the visitors had left Texford. Those who remained were able to amuse themselves, and did not require the attention of their host and hostess. Captain Headland, being looked upon as Harry’s guest, was quite independent. Lady Castleton was therefore more at liberty than she had been for some time.