As he could not do that, he made himself extra stiff.

“Your prospects.  Miss Bartley!  Why, they are brilliant.  Heiress to all the growing wealth and power around you.”

“Wealth and power!” said the girl.  “What is the use of them, if our hearts are to be broken?  Oh, Mr. Hope, papa is so unkind.  He has forbidden me to speak to him.”  Then, gravely, “That command comes too late.”

“I fear it does,” said Hope.  “I have long suspected something.”

“Suspected?” said Mary, turning pale.  “What?”

“That you and Walter Clifford—­”

“Yes,” said Mary, trembling inwardly, but commanding her face.

“Are—­engaged.”

Mary drew a long breath.  “What makes you think so?” said she, looking down.

“Well, there is a certain familiarity—­no, that is too strong a word; but there is more ease between you than there was.  Ever since I came back from Belgium I have seen that the preliminaries of courtship were over, and you two looked on yourselves as one.”

“Mr. Hope,” said this good, arch girl, and left off panting, “you are a terrible man.  Papa is eyes and no eyes.  You frighten me; but not very much, for you would not watch me so closely if you did not love me—­a little.”

“Not a little, Miss Bartley.”

“Mary, please.”

“Mary.  I have seen you a sickly child; I have been anxious—­who would not?  I have seen you grow in health and strength, and every virtue.”

“And seen me tumble into the water and frighten you out of your senses, and there’s nothing one loves like a downright pest, especially if she loves us; and I do love you, Mr. Hope, dearly, dearly, and I promise to be a pest to you all your days.  Ah, here he comes at last.”  She made two eager steps to meet him, then she said, “Oh!  I forgot,” and came back again and looked prodigiously demure and innocent.

Walter came on with his usual rush, crying, “Mary, how good of you!”

Mary put her fingers in her ears.  “No, no, no; we are forbidden to communicate.”  Then, imitating a stiff man of business—­for she was a capital mimic when she chose—­“any communication you may wish to honor me with must be addressed to this gentleman, Mr. Hope; he will convey it to me, and it shall meet with all the attention it deserves.”

Walter laughed, and said, “That’s ingenious.”

“Of course it is ingenuous,” said Mary, subtly.  “That’s my character to a fault.”

“Well, young people,” said Hope, “I am not sure that I have time to repeat verbal communications to keen ears that heard them.  And I think I can make myself more useful to you.  Walter, your father has set his lawyer on to Mr. Bartley, and what is the consequence?  Mr. Bartley forbids Mary to speak to you, and the next thing will be a summons, lawsuit, and a great defeat, and loss to your father and you.  Mr. Bartley sent me the lawyer’s letter.  He hopes to get out of a clear contract by pleading a surprise.  Now you must go to the lawyer—­it is no use arguing with your father in his present heat—­and you must assure him there has been no surprise.  Why, I called on Colonel Clifford years ago, and told him there was coal on that farm; and I almost went on my knees to him to profit by it.”