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Marcy knew well enough that his visitor's words were true, but he shook his head in a doubting way, as he replied: "That may all be; but I didn't hear you whoop and yell, and you must not expect me to take your word for it. You must bring some proof before I will talk to you."
The visitor's dress was very plain, and indicated poverty; she wore a long black jacket, untrimmed, a boa of cheap fur, tied at the throat with black ribbon, a hat of grey felt, black cotton gloves. 'No one here? she asked, seeing the empty kitchen. 'Goodness knows where they all are. I s'pose Dick's at his meeting; but Alice and 'Arry had ought to be back by now.
As the savages, however, soon insisted on examining the canoe, and taking a look at its contents, previously to listening to their visitor's explanations, le Bourdon was fain to submit, and to let the young men satisfy their curiosity. The bee-hunter had come on his hazardous expedition in his own canoe.
His evident hesitation to mention anything that would call attention to his own well-worn garb made Reginald feel quite sorry for him. "Oh yes," said he, taking good care not to look at his visitor's toilet, "we sent a good many of the circulars to clergymen." "Very considerate," said the visitor. "I was away from home and have only just received it."
So this quaint and shockingly heterodox millionaire would rave on, for he was a most peppery old person. One dark and terrible legend is current concerning him, but I hardly dare repeat it. Bob heard the visitor's story, and knitted his beetling bushy brows. He said: "Well, sir, you've spoken very fairly. Now just answer me one or two questions. How much money have you per year?"
But he didn't flatter himself that the desire to repair a past injustice was the motive of their visitor's calls; he read the situation more clearly. Isabel was the attraction, and in all conscience a sufficient one. Osmond was a critic, a student of the exquisite, and it was natural he should be curious of so rare an apparition. So when his mother observed to him that it was plain what Mr.
Brant's unlucky slip was still potent enough to divert the official attention, or he would have noticed the change in his visitor's face, and the abruptness of his departure. Once in the street, Brant tore off the envelope. But beneath it was another, on which was written in a delicate, refined hand: "Please do not open this until you reach your destination." Then she knew he was going!
"Sakes on me!" she cried, as she beheld the burden in her visitor's arms. "If it ain't Miss Rest all dead an' done!" Her red hands went up in the air with such a comical tragedy, and her big eyes performed such a wide revolution in their fat, sunburnt setting that Buck half-feared an utter collapse. So he hurriedly sought to reassure her, and offered a smiling encouragement.
He then sent me to look after his visitor's horse, and set before him some milk and oaten bread, which were all the dainties we possessed; our guest, however, seemed to feed upon it with an appetite as keen as if he had been educated in the Highlands; and what I could not help remarking with astonishment, although his air and manners proved that he could be no stranger to a more delicate way of living, not a single word fell from him that intimated he had ever been used to better fare.
He said if I came across to this shop I ought to find one." "He did, eh? . . . Hum!" "Yes, he did. So I came." "Hum!" This observation being neither satisfying nor particularly illuminating, Major Grover waited for something more explicit. He waited in vain; Mr. Winslow, his eyes fixed upon the toe of his visitor's military boot, appeared to be mesmerized.
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