“It shall be done at once,” said my father peremptorily, and almost angrily; and then there was a begging of pardon, and a scraping and shuffling, and Spicer went away. I saw him go out, putting his hat on as he shut the door. I never liked Spicer--of course he was one of the parishioners, and papa could not refuse his advice to him or to any one; but I made a face at him as he went away. I felt quite sure he was the sort of man one sometimes reads of in the newspapers, who put sand in the sugar, and sell bad tea to the poor people, and have light weights. This was in my mind along with a vague, faint curiosity as to what he had been talking about, when to my surprise papa came into the parlour. He came in quickly, with a flush on his face, and the most uneasy, uncomfortable look I ever saw a man have. Was he ashamed of something?--ashamed! he--papa!
“I suppose you have heard all that Spicer has been saying, Mary,” he said to me, quite abruptly. He gave me one strange look, and then turned away, and gazed at the Beautiful gate of the Temple which hung over the mantelpiece as if he had never seen it before.
“Yes,” I said; and then it suddenly flashed upon me that Spicer’s talk had not been exactly of a kind to be overheard by a girl, and that this was why poor papa looked so embarrassed and uncomfortable. He felt that it was not proper for me. “I heard a little of it,” I said instantly, “but I never listen, you know, papa, and I don’t know in the least what he was talking about.”
Poor papa! how delicate he was; how shocked I should have heard anything I ought not to know--though it was not so dreadful after all, for of course everybody knows that when people are married they have babies. But he did not like to look me in the face; he kept his back to me, and gazed at the twisted pillars.
“Mary,” he said, “I have a little explanation to make to you.”
“An explanation?” I looked at him over my blue print, wondering what it could be; but it did not seem worth while to stop working, and I threaded my needle and made a knot on my thread while I waited for what he was going to say. Then suddenly my heart began to beat a little fast, and the thought crossed my mind that perhaps my dreams were about to become true, and that he knew all about it as well as I, and was just going to tell me I was Lady Mary, and he Earl of ----. I had never been able to choose a satisfactory title, and I could not invent one on the spur of the moment; but instinctively I gave a glance from the window to see whether the beautiful carriage was in sight, coming to take us to our splendid home.