countenance looked so strangely dignified and melancholy, that in admiring
contemplation of it I lost some sentences which followed next.

'Therefore, dear, naturally anxious that my boy should not be dismissed
from home--as he must be, should you persevere in rejecting his suit--I beg
that you will reserve your decision to this day fortnight, when I will with
much pleasure hear what you may have to say on the subject. But till then,
observe me, not a word.'

That evening he and Dudley were closeted for a long time. I suspect that he
lectured him on the psychology of ladies; for a bouquet was laid beside my
plate every morning at breakfast, which it must have been troublesome to
get, for the conservatory at Bartram was a desert. In a few days more an
anonymous green parrot arrived, in a gilt cage, with a little note in a
clerk's hand, addressed to 'Miss Ruthyn (of Knowl), Bartram-Haugh,' &c. It
contained only 'Directions for caring green parrot,' at the close of which,
_underlined_, the words appeared--'The bird's name is Maud.'

The bouquets I invariably left on the table-cloth, where I found them--the
bird I insisted on Milly's keeping as her property. During the intervening
fortnight Dudley never appeared, as he used sometimes to do before, at
luncheon, nor looked in at the window as we were at breakfast. He contented
himself with one day placing himself in my way in the hall in his shooting
accoutrements, and, with a clumsy, shuffling kind of respect, and hat in
hand, he said--

'I think, Miss, I must a spoke uncivil t'other day. I was so awful put
about, and didn't know no more nor a child what I was saying; and I wanted
to tell ye I'm sorry for it, and I beg your pardon--very humble, I do.'

I did not know what to say. I therefore said nothing, but made a grave
inclination, and passed on.

Two or three times Milly and I saw him at a little distance in our walks.
He never attempted to join us. Once only he passed so near that some
recognition was inevitable, and he stopped and in silence lifted his hat
with an awkward respect. But although he did not approach us, he was
ostentatious with a kind of telegraphic civility in the distance. He opened
gates, he whistled his dogs to 'heel,' he drove away cattle, and then
himself withdrew. I really think he watched us occasionally to render these
services, for in this distant way we encountered him decidedly oftener than
we used to do before his flattering proposal of