"I cannot conceive how it could be any pain to Mr. Farebrother," said
Fred, who nevertheless felt that surprising conceptions were beginning
to form themselves.
"Precisely; you cannot conceive," said Mrs. Garth, cutting her words as
neatly as possible.
For a moment Fred looked at the horizon with a dismayed anxiety, and
then turning with a quick movement said almost sharply--
"Do you mean to say, Mrs. Garth, that Mr. Farebrother is in love with
Mary?"
"And if it were so, Fred, I think you are the last person who ought to
be surprised," returned Mrs. Garth, laying her knitting down beside her
and folding her arms. It was an unwonted sign of emotion in her that
she should put her work out of her hands. In fact her feelings were
divided between the satisfaction of giving Fred his discipline and the
sense of having gone a little too far. Fred took his hat and stick and
rose quickly.
"Then you think I am standing in his way, and in Mary's too?" he said,
in a tone which seemed to demand an answer.
Mrs. Garth could not speak immediately. She had brought herself into
the unpleasant position of being called on to say what she really felt,
yet what she knew there were strong reasons for concealing. And to her
the consciousness of having exceeded in words was peculiarly
mortifying. Besides, Fred had given out unexpected electricity, and he
now added, "Mr. Garth seemed pleased that Mary should be attached to
me. He could not have known anything of this."
Mrs. Garth felt a severe twinge at this mention of her husband, the
fear that Caleb might think her in the wrong not being easily
endurable. She answered, wanting to check unintended consequences--
"I spoke from inference only. I am not aware that Mary knows anything
of the matter."
But she hesitated to beg that he would keep entire silence on a subject
which she had herself unnecessarily mentioned, not being used to stoop
in that way; and while she was hesitating there was already a rush of
unintended consequences under the apple-tree where the tea-things
stood. Ben, bouncing across the grass with Brownie at his heels, and
seeing the kitten dragging the knitting by a lengthening line of wool,
shouted and clapped his hands; Brownie barked, the kitten, desperate,
jumped on the tea-table and upset the milk, then jumped down again and
swept half the cherries with it; and Ben, snatching up the half-knitted
sock-top, fitted it over the kitten's head as a new source of madness,
while Letty arriving cried out to her mother against this cruelty--it
was a history as full of sensation as "This is the house that Jack
built." Mrs. Garth was obliged to interfere, the other young ones came
up and the tete-a-tete with Fred was ended. He got away as soon as he
could, and Mrs. Garth could only imply some retractation of her
severity by saying "God bless you" when she shook hands with him.