en she was first thrown into the company of strangers. She brought
out the last week's county paper (which Mr Holdsworth had read five
days ago), and then quietly withdrew; and then he subsided into
languor, leaning back and shutting his eyes as if he would go to sleep.
I stole into the kitchen after Phillis; but she had made the round of
the corner of the house outside, and I found her sitting on the
horse-mount, with her basket of peas, and a basin into which she was
shelling them. Rover lay at her feet, snapping now and then at the
flies. I went to her, and tried to help her, but somehow the sweet
crisp young peas found their way more frequently into my mouth than
into the basket, while we talked together in a low tone, fearful of
being overheard through the open casements of the house-place in which
Holdsworth was resting.

'Don't you think him handsome?' asked I.

'Perhaps--yes--I have hardly looked at him,' she replied 'But is not he
very like a foreigner?'

'Yes, he cuts his hair foreign fashion,' said I.

'I like an Englishman to look like an Englishman.'

'I don't think he thinks about it. He says he began that way when he
was in Italy, because everybody wore it so, and it is natural to keep
it on in England.'

'Not if he began it in Italy because everybody there wore it so.
Everybody here wears it differently.'

I was a little offended with Phillis's logical fault-finding with my
friend; and I determined to change the subject.

'When is your mother coming home?'

'I should think she might come any time now; but she had to go and see
Mrs Morton, who was ill, and she might be kept, and not be home till
dinner. Don't you think you ought to go and see how Mr Holdsworth is
going on, Paul? He may be faint again.'

I went at her bidding; but there was no need for it. Mr Holdsworth was
up, standing by the window, his hands in his pockets; he had evidently
been watching us. He turned away as I entered.

'So that is the girl I found your good father planning for your wife,
Paul, that evening when I interrupted you! Are you of the same coy mind
still? It did not look like it a minute ago.'

'Phillis and I understand each other,' I replied, sturdily. 'We are
like brother and sister. She would not have me as a husband if there
was not another man in the world; and it would take a deal to make me
think of her--as my father wishes' (somehow I did not like to say 'as a
wife'), 'but we love each other dearly.'