Now be good,"--a quality in Mrs.
Harkutt's mind synonymous with ceasing from troubling,--"and after
supper, while I'm in the parlor with your father and sisters, you kin
sit up here by the fire with your book."
"But," persisted the boy in a flash of inspiration, "is popper goin' to
join in business with those surveyors,--a surveyin'?"
"No, child, what an idea! Run away there,--and mind!--don't bother your
father."
Nevertheless John Milton's inspiration had taken a new and
characteristic shape. All this, he reflected, had happened since the
surveyors came--since they had weakly displayed such a shameless and
unmanly interest in his sisters! It could have but one meaning. He hung
around the sitting-room and passages until he eventually encountered
Clementina, taller than ever, evidently wearing a guilty satisfaction
in her face, engrafted upon that habitual bearing of hers which he had
always recognized as belonging to a vague but objectionable race whose
members were individually known to him as "a proudy."
"Which of those two surveyor fellows is it, Clemmy?" he said with an
engaging smile, yet halting at a strategic distance.
"Is what?"
"Wot you're goin' to marry."
"Idiot!"
"That ain't tellin' which," responded the boy darkly.
Clementina swept by him into the sitting-room, where he heard her
declare that "really that boy was getting too low and vulgar
for anything.
Pages:
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84