"By the way, Walter, his daughter Jessie is in Deerwood, is she not?"
"Yes," returned Walter; "she has been there for some weeks. She lived with us all the time her father was in Europe, except when she was away at school," and Walter felt his pulses quicken, for he remembered what Mr. Graham had said of Mrs. Bartow's having set her heart on William as her future grandson.
William knew as well as Walter that Jessie had lived at Deerwood, but he seemed to be surprised, and continued:
"I wonder, then, she is not here to-day. She must feel quite a sisterly interest in you," and the eyes, not wholly unlike Walter's, save that they had in them a sinister expression, were fixed inquiringly upon young Marshall, who replied:
"I did expect her, and my cousin too; but my grandfather says that Ellen was not able to come, and Jessie would not leave her."
"She must be greatly attached to her country friends," returned William, and the slight sneer which accompanied the words prompted Walter to reply:
"She is attached to some of us, I trust. At all events, I love her as a sister, for such she has been to me, while Mr. Graham has been a second father. I owe him everything----"
"Not your education, certainly. You don't mean that?" interrupted William, who had from the first suspected as much, for he knew that Deacon Marshall was comparatively poor.
Walter hesitated, for he had not yet outlived the pride which caused him to shrink from blazoning it abroad that a stranger's money had made him what he was. Deacon Marshall, on the contrary, had no such sensitiveness, and observing Walter's embarrassment, he answered for him:
"Yes, Mr. Graham did pay for his education, and an old man's blessing on his head for that same deed of his'n."
"Mr. Graham is very liberal," returned William, with a supercilious bow, which brought the hot blood to Walter's cheek. "Do you go home immediately?" he continued, and Walter replied:
"My grandfather has a desire to visit Medway, in Massachusetts, where he married his wife, and as I promised to go with him in case he came to New Haven, I shall not return to Deerwood for a week."
Instantly the face of William Bellenger brightened, and Walter felt a strong desire to knock him down when he said: