ery
agreeably finding expression, that I was--"clever." They all stood
about me as if they were a little at a loss.

"Sit down!" said her father. "Give him a chair, Puss."

We talked a little stiffly--they were evidently surprised by my
sudden apparition, dusty, fatigued, and white faced; but Nettie
did not remain to keep the conversation going.

"There!" she cried suddenly, as if she were vexed. "I declare!"
and she darted out of the room.

"Lord! what a girl it is!" said Mrs. Stuart. "I don't know what's
come to her."

It was half an hour before Nettie came back. It seemed a long time
to me, and yet she had been running, for when she came in again
she was out of breath. In the meantime, I had thrown out casually
that I had given up my place at Rawdon's. "I can do better than
that," I said.

"I left my book in the dell," she said, panting. "Is tea
ready?" and that was her apology. . .

We didn't shake down into comfort even with the coming of the
tea-things. Tea at the gardener's cottage was a serious meal, with
a big cake and little cakes, and preserves and fruit, a fine spread
upon a table. You must imagine me, sullen, awkward, and preoccupied,
perplexed by the something that was inexplicably unexpected in
Nettie, saying little, and glowering across the cake at her, and all
the eloquence I had been concentrating for the previous twenty-four
hours, miserably lost somewhere in the back of my mind. Nettie's
father tried to set me talking; he had a liking for my gift of ready
speech, for his own ideas came with difficulty, and it pleased and
astonished him to hear me pouring out my views. Indeed, over there
I was, I think, even more talkative than with Parload, though to
the world at large I was a shy young lout. "You ought to write it
out for the newspapers," he used to say. "That's what you ought to
do. I never heard such nonsense."

Or, "You've got the gift of the gab, young man. We ought to ha'
made a lawyer of you."

But that afternoon, even in his eyes, I didn't shine. Failing any
other stimulus, he reverted to my search for a situation, but even
that did not engage me.

Section 5

For a long time I feared I should have to go back to Clayton without
another word to Nettie, she seemed insensible to the need I felt
for a talk with her, and I was thinking even of a sudden demand
for that before them all. It was a transparent manoeuver of her
mother's who had been watching my face, that sent us out