If Bates had been sure that the girl would return safely he would perhaps have been as well pleased that she should not return in time to meet the proposed adoration; as it was, he was far too ill at ease concerning her not to desire her advent as ardently as did the naive youth.  The first feeling made his manner severe; the second constrained him to say he supposed she would shortly appear.

His mind was a good deal confounded, but if he supposed anything it was that, having wakened to find herself left behind by the boat, she had walked away from the house in an access of anger and disappointment, and he expected her to return soon, because he did not think she had courage or resolution to go very far alone.  Underneath this was the uneasy fear that her courage and resolution might take her farther into danger than was at all desirable, but he stifled the fear.

When he went in he told the company, in a few matter-of-fact words of his partner’s death, and the object of the excursion from which they had seen him return.  He also mentioned that his aunt’s companion, the dead man’s child, had, it appeared, gone off into the woods that morning—­this was by way of apology that she was not there to cook for them, but he took occasion to ask if they had seen her on the hill.  As they had come down the least difficult way and had not met her, he concluded that she had not endeavoured to go far afield, and tried to dismiss his anxiety and enjoy his guests in his own way.

Hospitality, even in its simplest form, is more often a matter of amiable pride than of sincere unselfishness, but it is not a form of pride with which people are apt to quarrel.  Bates, when he found himself conversing with scientific men of gentle manners, was resolved to show himself above the ordinary farmer of that locality.  He went to the barrel where the summer’s eggs had been packed in soft sand, and took out one apiece for the assembled company.  He packed the oven with large potatoes.  He put on an excellent supply of tea to boil.  The travellers, who, in fact, had had their ordinary breakfast some hours before, made but feeble remonstrances against these preparations, remonstrances which only caused Bates to make more ample provision.  He brought out a large paper bag labelled, “patent self-raising pancake meal,” and a small piece of fat pork.  Here he was obliged to stop and confess himself in need of culinary skill; he looked at the men, not doubting that he could obtain it from them.

“The Philadelphian can do it better,” said one.  This was corroborated by the others.  “Call Harkness,” they cried, and at the same time they called Harkness themselves.

The young American opened the door and came in in a very leisurely, not to say languid, manner.  He took in the situation at a glance without asking a question.  “But,” said he, “are we not to wait for the intelligent young lady?  Female intelligence can make the finer pancake.”