t it up, in fact, to show that no
answer was coming to that question.

'O now, come, seriously, Loveday is a good fellow, and so is his father.'

'I don't know.'

'What a close little rogue you are! There is no getting anything out of
you. I believe you would say "I don't know," to every mortal question,
so very discreet as you are. Upon my heart, there are some women who
would say "I don't know," to "Will ye marry me?"'

The brightness upon Anne's cheek and in her eyes during this remark
showed that there was a fair quantity of life and warmth beneath the
discretion he complained of. Having spoken thus, he drew aside that she
might pass, and bowed very low. Anne formally inclined herself and went
on.

She had been at vexation point all the time that he was present, from a
haunting sense that he would not have spoken to her so freely had she
been a young woman with thriving male relatives to keep forward admirers
in check. But she had been struck, now as at their previous meeting,
with the power she possessed of working him up either to irritation or to
complacency at will; and this consciousness of being able to play upon
him as upon an instrument disposed her to a humorous considerateness, and
made her tolerate even while she rebuffed him.

When Anne got to the hall the farmer, as usual, insisted upon her reading
what he had been unable to get through, and held the paper tightly in his
skinny hand till she had agreed. He sent her to a hard chair that she
could not possibly injure to the extent of a pennyworth by sitting in it
a twelvemonth, and watched her from the outer angle of his near eye while
she bent over the paper. His look might have been suggested by the sight
that he had witnessed from his window on the last occasion of her visit,
for it partook of the nature of concern. The old man was afraid of his
nephew, physically and morally, and he began to regard Anne as a fellow-
sufferer under the same despot. After this sly and curious gaze at her
he withdrew his eye again, so that when she casually lifted her own there
was nothing visible but his keen bluish profile as before.

When the reading was about half-way through, the door behind them opened,
and footsteps crossed the threshold. The farmer diminished perceptibly
in his chair, and looked fearful, but pretended to be absorbed in the
reading, and quite unconscious of an intruder. Anne felt the presence of
the swashing Festus, and stopped