e
ground she had gained when she wrote and amazed Lilias!) she was used to
associating with older people, and could suit herself to their ways and
be handy to them.

Harry smiled blandly on the partition for three whole days. At the
close of the third day, when Susan and Joanna were brushing their hair
together, Susan started the proposal that they should return to the
Ewes whenever Mrs. Jardine's inventories, and settling and sorting of
accounts, were brought to an end; "because, Joanna, Harry is getting
cross; I am sure of it; he is not half so agreeable as he was the
first night. I think he is angry because his mother keeps you to
herself, and sends me to talk to him and give him music. When I come
to think of it, it is a very senseless plan of hers, and perhaps she
is spiteful though she is so attentive, and I am not frightened at her
any longer. She is a quick woman, but as pleasant as possible; but if
you please, Joanna, you can be shut up with her, and go out with her
till we leave, for I should not care for it very much, and I see no
call for it on my part; and I am certain we had better fix on going
home again as soon as we can manage it."

"Very well, Susan; only you speak very fast; I can scarcely follow
you. It strikes me you are wrong on one point. I never noticed that
Harry Jardine was tired of being your host, or that he minded who sat
next him."

"Not tired of me exactly, or careless of my enjoyment, because, to be
sure, Harry Jardine is courting all of us. Nonsense, Joanna, you need
not affect to be sage and precise and unconcerned. I am not so silly,
and it is very conceited of you, and I have no patience with you. Of
course I was not blind and deaf, and I have not lost my memory. Harry
Jardine is continually looking after you, whatever his mother persuades
herself. He never notices what I wear, and he remembered ribbons you
wore months since. I put on mine, and he looked at it and said, 'That is
like one of Joanna's; is it not?' Now I know very well he never calls
any of us by our Christian names to other people, and only you to one or
other of us, and he does it pointedly, as if to express, 'I mean to be
your brother-in-law one of these days, and I want to keep you in mind of
my intentions, so I take the liberty.'"

"Why don't you say, 'Mr. Jardine, Joanna does not like a liberty taken
with her name'?"

"I dare say! and have him reply, 'Did Joanna tell me so herself?' I
believe he would be onl