第56章 XVIII.(3)

I'm afraid it'll seem as if we wanted to flatter him, and goodness knows we don't want to. Or, yes, we do! I'd give anything if it was true.

Rufus, do you suppose he did stay on her account? My, oh, my! If Icould only think so! Wouldn't it be the best thing in the world for the poor child, and for all of us? I never saw anybody that I liked so much.

But it's too good to be true."

"He's a nice fellow, but I don't think he's any too good for Ellen.""I'm not saying he is. The great thing is that he's good enough, and gracious knows what will happen if she meets some other worthless fellow, and gets befooled with him! Or if she doesn't take a fancy to some one, and goes back to Tuskingum without seeing any one else she likes, there is that awful wretch, and when she hears what Dick did to him--she's just wrong-headed enough to take up with him again to make amends to him. Oh, dear oh, dear! I know Lottie will let it out to her yet!"The judge began threateningly, "You tell Lottie from me--""What?" said the girl herself, who had seen her father and mother talking together in a remote corner of the music-room and had stolen light-footedly upon them just at this moment.

"Lottie, child," said her mother, undismayed at Lottie's arrival in her larger anxiety, "I wish you would try and be agreeable to Mr. Breckon.

Now that he's going on with us to Holland, I don't want him to think we're avoiding him.""Why?"

"Oh, because."

"Because you want to get him for Ellen?"

"Don't be impudent," said her father. "You do as your mother bids you.""Be agreeable to that old Breckon? I think I see myself! I'd sooner read! I'm going to get a book now." She left them as abruptly as she had come upon them, and ran across to the bookcase, where she remained two stepping and peering through the glass doors at the literature within, in unaccustomed question concerning it.

"She's a case," said the judge, looking at her not only with relenting, but with the pride in her sufficiency for all the exigencies of life which he could not feel in Ellen. "She can take care of herself.""Oh yes," Mrs. Kenton sadly assented, I don't think anybody will ever make a fool of Lottie.""It's a great deal more likely to be the other way," her father suggested.

"I think Lottie is conscientious," Mrs. Kenton protested. "She wouldn't really fool with a man.""No, she's a good girl," the judge owned.

"It's girls like Ellen who make the trouble and the care. They are too good, and you have to think some evil in this world. Well!" She rose and gave her husband back his book.

"Do you know where Boyne is?"

"No. Do you want him to be pleasant to Mr. Breckon?""Somebody has got to. But it would be ridiculous if nobody but Boyne was."She did not find Boyne, after no very exhaustive search, and the boy was left to form his bearing towards Breckon on the behavior of the rest of his family. As this continued helplessly constrained both in his father and mother, and voluntarily repellent in Lottie, Boyne decided upon a blend of conduct which left Breckon in greater and greater doubt of his wisdom in keeping on to Rotterdam. There was no good reason which he would have been willing to give himself, from the beginning. It had been an impulse, suddenly coming upon him in the baggage-room where he had gone to get something out of his trunk, and where he had decided to have the label of his baggage changed from the original destination at Boulogne to the final port of the steamer's arrival. When this was once done he was sorry, but he was ashamed to have the label changed back.

The most assignable motive for his act was his reluctance to go on to Paris with the Rasmiths, or rather with Mrs. Rasmith; for with her daughter, who was not a bad fellow, one could always manage. He was quite aware of being safely in his own hands against any design of Mrs.

Rasmith's, but her machinations humiliated him for her; he hated to see her going through her manoeuvres, and he could not help grieving for her failures, with a sort of impersonal sympathy, all the more because he disliked her as little as he respected her.