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Rylands, however, who ever since Jack's abrupt departure had noticed this change in the girl's demeanor to herself, and with a woman's intuitive insight of another woman, had fathomed it. The comfortable tete-a-tete with Jack, which Jane had looked forward to, Mrs. Rylands had anticipated herself, and then sent him off! When Joshua thanked his wife for remembering the pepper-sauce, and Mrs.
Rylands was neither satirical nor philosophical, and presently, when Jane reentered, with color in her alkaline face, and light in her huckleberry eyes, and said she was going over to the cattle-sheds in the "far pasture," to see if the hired man didn't know of some horse that could be got for the stranger, Mrs.
I saw her myself through the winder. That's what I mean, Mr. Joshua Rylands." "It's false! She had some poor stranger here with a lame horse. She told me so herself." Jane Mackinnon laughed shrilly. "Did she tell you that the poor stranger was young and pretty-faced, with black moustarches? that his store clothes must have cost a fortin, saying nothing of his gold-lined, broadcloth sarrapper?
I want you to answer me, before God and man, what was your purpose in coming there to-day?" "Look here! I don't think it's necessary to drag in strangers to hear my answer," said Jack, lying down again, "but I came to borrow a horse." "Is that the truth?" Jack got upon his feet very solemnly, put on his hat, drew down his waistcoat, and approached Mr. Rylands with his hands in his pockets. "Mr.
Rylands hesitated a moment, then, with a preliminary cough, lifted a voice as crude as hers, but powerful through much camp-meeting exercise, and roared a chorus which was remarkable chiefly for requiring that archness and playfulness in execution which he lacked. As the whole house seemed to dilate with the sound, and the wind outside to withhold its fury, Mr.
"Yes'm," said Jane, apparently equally relieved. "Only, I thought I'd just tell you." A few minutes later, in crossing the upper hall, Mrs. Rylands heard Jane's voice from the kitchen raised in rustic laughter.
"A secret?" he repeated gravely. "Why not now?" Her face was quite aglow with excitement and a certain timid mischief as she laughed: "Not while you are so solemn. It can wait." He looked at his watch. "I must give some orders to Jim about the stock before he turns in," he said. "He's gone to the stables already," said Mrs. Rylands. "No matter; I can go there and find him."
"There used to be a mighty pretty dance went to that," she said, nodding her head in time with the music, and assisting the heavily spasmodic attempts of the instrument with the pleasant levity of her voice. "I used to do it." "Ye might try it now, Ellen," suggested her husband, with a half-frightened, half-amused tolerance. "YOU play, then," said Mrs. Rylands quickly, offering her seat to him.
It would be a long wet walk for Joshua Rylands, as their only horse had been borrowed by a neighbor. In that fading light Mrs. Rylands's oval cheek was shining still from the raindrops, but there was something in the expression of her worried face that might have as readily suggested tears.
Rylands," he said, with great suavity of manner, "this is the second time today that I have had the honor of having my word doubted by your family. Your wife was good enough to question my assertion that I didn't know that she was living here, but that was a woman's vanity. You have no such excuse. There is my horse yonder, lame, as you may see.
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