I did not escape Mr. Hoad by my walk. He had stayed to tea. I do not think that he was a favorite of mother's, but she always made a great point of welcoming all father's friends to the house, and I saw that she had welcomed him to-night. He sat in the place of honor beside her, and there were on the tea-table, and a pot of special marmalade in the middle.  
It was very late when I came in. I took off my things in the hall and went in without smoothing my hair. I thought I should have been in disgrace for coming in late, and for having my hair in when a guest was present; but mother had forgotten her displeasure, and smiled as she pushed my cup towards me. She never made any to by-gone differences—her anger never lasted long.
 
The mood that I had brought with me from without was still upon me, and when I saw that father's face had lost its gray pallor, that his eyes shone with their usual fire, and that his voice was strong and healthy, I sighed a sigh of relief and told myself that I was a fool, and that Mr. Hoad must really be a good fellow if he could so soon chase away the gloom from my parent's brow.
 
"Your husband looks wonderfully well again, Mrs. Maliphant," he was saying; "it's quite surprising how soon he has pulled round. When I met the doctor the other day driving from town, and stopped to ask after him, he said it would be weeks before he could be about again. But he has got a splendid constitution—must have. Not that I would wish to detract from your powers of nursing. We all have heard how wonderful they are."
 
Mr. Hoad smiled at mother, but she did not smile back again. There were people whom she kept at arm's-length, even though carefully civil to them. I don't suppose she knew this, for she was a shy woman, but I it well.
 
"We can all nurse those we are fond of," she said. "I'm sure I'm very pleased to think you should find Mr. Maliphant looking better."
 
"Better! Nonsense!" exclaimed father. "I'm as well as I ever was in my life. Don't let's hear any more about that, wife, there's a dear soul."
 
", you shall hear no more about it than need be from me, Laban, I can promise you that," smiled mother, pouring out the tea, while Joyce, from the opposite side of the table, where she was cutting up the seed-cake that she had made with her own hands the day before, asked the guest after his two daughters.
 
"They are very busy," answered Mr. Hoad. "A large acquaintance, you know—it involves a great deal of calling. I'm afraid they have been here."
 
"Oh, I pray, don't mention such a thing, Mr. Hoad," exclaimed mother, hastily. "We don't pay calls ourselves. We are plain folk, and don't hold with fashionable ways."
 
Mr. Hoad smiled rather uncomfortably.
 
"And we have not much to amuse them with," I put in. "We do nothing that young ladies do."
 
I saw mother purse up her lips at this, and I was that I had said it, but father laughed and said: "No, Hoad, my girls are simple farmer's daughters, and have learned more about gardening and house-keeping than they have about French and piano-playing, though Meg can sing a when she chooses as well as I want to hear it."
 
I declared my voice was nothing to Miss Hoad's; and Joyce, always gracious, looked across to Mr. Hoad and said: "I wonder whether Miss Jessie would sing something for us at our village concert?"
 
"I'll ask her," said Mr. Hoad, a little diffidently. "I'm never sure about my daughters' engagements. They have so many engagements."
 
"We shall be very pleased to see them here any afternoon for a practice, sha'n't we, mother?" added Joyce.
 
"The young ladies will always be welcome," replied mother, a little stiffly; and I hastened to add, I fear less graciously:
 
"But pray don't let them break any engagements for us."
 
Mr. Hoad smiled again, and then father turned to him and they took up the thread of their own talk where they had left it.
 
"You certainly ought to know that young fellow I was speaking of," Mr. Hoad began. "I was struck with him at once. A wonderful gift of expressing himself, and just that kind of way with him that always wins people—one can't explain it. Handsome, too, and full of enthusiasm."
 
"Enthusiasm don't always carry weight," objected father. "It's rather apt to fly too high."
 
"Bound to fly high when you have got to get over the heads of other folks," laughed Mr. Hoad.
 
Father looked annoyed. "I wasn't joking, I wasn't joking," said he. "If men want to go in for great work, they can't afford to take it lightly." And then he added with one of his quick looks, "But don't misunderstand me, Hoad. Enthusiasm of the right kind never takes things lightly. It's the only sort of stuff that wins great battles, because it has plenty of courage and don't know the meaning of failure. Only there's such lots of stuff that's called enthusiasm and is nothing but gas. I should like to see this young man and judge for myself. God forbid I should think youth a stumbling-block. Youth is the time for doing as well as for dreaming."
 
Father sighed, and though I could not tell why at the time, I can guess now that it was from the recollection of that friend of his who must have been the type of youthful enthusiasm thus to have left his memory and the strength of his convictions so many years in the heart of another.
 
"Well, you can see him easily enough," said Mr. Hoad. "He's staying in your village, I believe. He's a nephew of Broderick's."
 
"What! Captain Forrester?" cried I.
 
"Ah, you know him of course, Miss Maliphant. Trust the young ladies for finding out the handsome men," said Mr. Hoad, turning to me with his most irritating expression of gallantry. I bit my lips with at having opened my mouth to the man, especially as he glanced across at Joyce with a horribly knowing look, at which of course she blushed, making me very angry.
 
"I fancy the squire and he don't get on so extra well together," said Mr. Hoad. "Squire don't like the look of the lad that'll step into his shoes, if he don't make haste and marry and have a son of his own, I suppose."
 
"I should think this smart captain had best not reckon too much on the property," said mother, stiffly, up in arms at once for her favorite. "The squire's young enough yet to marry and have a dozen sons."
 
"Yes, yes, ma'am, only joking, only joking," declared Mr. Hoad. "I shouldn't think the lad gave the property a thought."
 
"If he's the kind of man you say, he can't possibly care about property," said I, , talking of what I could not understand. Father smiled, but smiled , at me. Mr. Hoad laughed and made me furious.
 
"I see you're up in all the party phrases, young lady," said he.
 
"How did you come to know the young man, Hoad?" asked father, without giving me time to reply. "You seem to have become friends in a very short time."
 
"He came to me on a matter of business," repeated Hoad, evasively. "I fancy he's pretty hard up. Only got his captain's pay and a little private property, on his father's side, I suppose, and no doubt gives more than he can spare to these societies and things."
 
Father was silent. Probably he knew, what I had no notion of, that there was another branch to Mr. Hoad's profession besides that of a . Evidently he did not like to be reminded of the fact, for he knitted his brow and let his fall, as he always did when annoyed.
 
"I don't know how we came to talk politics," Hoad went on, "but we did, and I thought to myself, 'Why, here's just the man for Maliphant.' I never knew any one else go as far as you do; but this young fellow—why, he nearly beat you, 'pon my soul he did!"
 
"Politics!" echoed father, frowning more unmistakably than ever; "what have they got to do with the matter?"
 
"Come, now, Maliphant, you're not going to keep that up forever," cried Mr. Hoad, in his most intimate and good-natured fashion. Oh, how I resented it when he would treat father as though he were on perfect equality with him! For my father's daughter I was intolerant; but then Mr. Hoad patronized, and patronizing was not necessary in order to be consistent.
 
"What do you mean?" asked father.
 
"It was all very well for you to swear you would have nothing to do with us before," continued Mr. Hoad. "You did not think we should ever get hold of a man who looked at things as you ............