“Boys,” said Mr. Whitman, “you may take the harnesses off the horses, we’ll have a half holiday to talk with James, and it would be too bad to put old Frank into the team the first day he came home.”
It was a matter of necessity that James should (after conversing with Mr. Whitman, and telling him all the news in regard to his brother’s family) go directly to Mr. Conly’s, carry letters, and tell him and his wife everything in relation to their daughter, her husband and the grandchildren, interesting for them to know. It was, however, not accomplished that afternoon or even in the evening, of which it consumed a large portion, but required so many evenings that at length it began to attract attention.
“James goes to the Conlys a great deal. Do you think he has any particular reason?” said Mr. Whitman to his wife.
“I don’t know. Mr. Conly’s was the first place he ever went to; he and Edward are great friends; always have been. The master, you know, worked here all one summer and has always tried to help James from the start. I think it would be strange if he didn’t go there a good deal, especially as he goes nowhere else.”
“I know all that, but I am of the same mind still.”
Mrs. Whitman interrogated Bertie, but though generally so communicative, he was all at once very reticent.
“Bertie, your father and myself are the best friends James has in the world, and your father is able to help James if he is so minded. If there is anything in this, you know and ought to tell us, for it will go no farther.”
“Well, mother, if you must know, he’s dying for Emily, and she’s dying for him.”
“Then why don’t he tell her so? There’s not a better girl in the country, nor more capable.”
“Because he imagines a host of things. He thinks because she and her folks know all about his coming out of a workhouse, and she knows what he was when he first came here, and how he was picked upon and scouted at school, they must kind of look down upon him; that though they might pity him, treat him as a friend and try to help him along, it would be another thing if he wanted to come into the family, and even if they didn’t care they might think other people would, and throw it up at them that she was going with a _redemptioner_.