"It is very easy to see that we are not the only ones who suspect his sentiments," I said, smiling at my thoughts. "Mrs. Colquhoun told me that she and Salemina stopped at one of the tenants' cabins, the other day, to leave some small comforts that Dr. La Touche had sent to a sick child. The woman thanked Salemina, and Mrs.
Colquhoun heard her say, 'When a man will stop, coming in the doore, an' stoop down to give a sthroke and a scratch to the pig's back, depend on it, ma'am, him that's so friendly with a poor fellow- crathur will make ye a good husband.'
"I have given him every opportunity to confide in me," I continued, after a pause, "but he accepts none of them; and yet I like him a thousand times better now that I have seen him as the master of his own house. He is so courtly, and, in these latter days, so genial and sunny . . . Salemina's life would not at first be any too easy, I fear; the aunt is very feeble, and the establishment is so neglected. I went into Dr. Gerald's study the other day to see an old print, and there was a buzz-buzz-zzzz when the butler pulled up the blinds. 'Do you mind bees, ma'am?' he asked blandly. 'There's been a swarm of them in one corner of the ceiling for manny years, an' we don't like to disturb them.' . . . Benella said yesterday:
'Of course, when you three separate, I shall stay with the one that needs me most; but if Miss Peabody SHOULD settle over here anywhere, I'd like to take a scrubbing brush an' go through the castle, or whatever she's going to live in, with soap and sand and ammonia, and make it water-sweet before she sets foot in it.' . . . As for the children, however, no one could regard them as a drawback, for they are altogether charming; not well disciplined, of course, but lovable to the last degree. Broona was planning her future life when we were walking together yesterday. Jackeen is to be 'an engineer, by the sea,' so it seems, and Broona is to be a farmer's wife with a tiny red bill-book like Mrs. Colquhoun's. Her little boys and girls will sell the milk, and when Jackeen has his engineering holidays he will come and eat fresh butter and scones and cream and jam at the farm, and when her children have their holidays they will go and play on 'Jackeen's beach.' It is the little people I rely upon chiefly, after all. I wish you could have seen them cataract down the staircase to greet her this morning. I notice that she tries to make me divert their attention when Dr.
Gerald is present; for it is a bit suggestive to a widower to see his children pursue, hang about, and caress a lovely, unmarried lady. Broona, especially, can hardly keep away from Salemina; and she is such a fascinating midget, I should think anybody would be glad to have her included in a marriage contract. 'You have a weeny, weeny line between your eyebrows, just like my daddy's,' she said to Salemina the other day. 'It's such a little one, perhaps I can kiss it away; but daddy has too many, and they are cutted too deep. Sometimes he whispers, 'Daddy is sad, Broona,' and then I say, 'Play up, play up, and play the game!' and that makes him smile.'"
"She is a darling," said Francesca, with the suspicion of a tear in her eye. "'Were you ever in love, Miss Fancy?' she asked me once.