smile of loving pleasure.
“I came to look for you, Mary,” said Mr. Garth. “Let us walk about a bit.”
Mary knew quite well that her father had something particular to say: his eyebrows made their pathetic angle, and there was a tender gravity in his voice: these things had been signs to her when she was Letty’s age. She put her arm within his, and they turned by the row of nut-trees.
“It will be a sad while before you can be married, Mary,” said her father, not looking at her, but at the end of the stick which he held in his other hand.
“Not a sad while, father—I mean to be merry,” said Mary, laughingly. “I have been single and merry for four-and-twenty years and more: I suppose it will not be quite as long again as that.” Then, after a little pause, she said, more gravely, bending her face before her father’s, “If you are contented with Fred?”
Caleb screwed up his mouth and turned his head aside wisely.
“Now, father, you did praise him last Wednesday. You said he had an uncommon notion of stock, and a good eye for things.”
“Did I?” said Caleb, rather slyly.
“Yes, I put it all down, and the date, anno Domini , and everything,” said Mary. “You like things to be neatly booked. And then his behavior to you, father, is really good; he has a deep respect for you; and it is impossible to have a better temper than Fred has.”
“Ay, ay; you want to coax me into thinking him a fine match.”
“No, indeed, father. I don’t love him because he is a fine match.”