“I am not as sorry as I was.” The why of this last decision she did not seek to analyze, but dropped into the hammock, and, lulled by its motion, by and by fell asleep.
After awhile came Lyndsay on tip-toe, and, smiling, kissed her, and then again before she quite waked up.
At this she sat up, with a faint blush on her cheek, fetched from far away out of dreamland. I do not know of what she was dreaming.
“You startled me so, Pardy. How wicked you are! Mr. Carington has been here, and left a note for you.”
“And you settled your small obligations—hey, Rose?”
“Difficult?” He had anticipated her embarrassments.
“No. Not even you could have been nicer about it.”
“Yes—oh, yes,” she said with indifference. “I thought him pleasant. He talks quite well, and is a gentleman.”
“Don’t, please, Pardy; I—I hate to be joked about it.”
“I won’t, dear. To say, in these days of too easy fashions, that a man is a gentleman means, for us at least, a good deal.”
“I think so. Of course, I had to say distinctly that I thanked him, and he received it so—so quietly and simply that I was not in the least embarrassed. I can’t tell you, Pardy, how absurdly I dreaded it.”
Thereupon Mr. Lyndsay went in, saying to himself:
“I hope the receiver isn’t going to be the thief—confound the business!”
The next day, being Saturday, a little note sent in the morning told Carington that Miss Lyndsay and her father would fish his waters in the afternoon. Her father took Rose up in his own canoe, and at the Island Camp they found their new friends. Mr. Ellett went off to take their pool, and Rose was soon seated in Carington’s canoe, facing the stern of the boat.
“No,” he said gaily, “I shall sit between you and Michelle, here in the bottom. I shall be very comfortable, and I shall be able to criticize your casts. No, I don’t mean to fish. It is your day—all yours. We shall beat you, Mr. Lyndsay. Mind, Michelle, we are bent on wholesale business.”
Then they were off, and in a half-hour were at the head of the pool, a full cast from the bank, and in a wilful rush of broken water. Meanwhile Mr. Lyndsay dropped down half a mile below them.
“I am afraid you must cast seated,” said Carington. “The boat rocks too much for it to be safe to stand.”