Читать книгу The Primrose Path: A Chapter in the Annals of the Kingdom of Fife онлайн

87 страница из 131

“Would you like to draw Earl’s-hall?” she said. “I know you have it done in the distance. But it is grand in the distance, and close at hand it is not so grand, it is only funny. Perhaps you could make a picture, Mr.—Glen, of Earl’s-hall?”

“I should very much like to try. Might I try? Perhaps Sir Ludovic might not like it.”

“Papa likes what I like,” said Margaret. But then she paused. “There is Bell. You know Bell, Mr.—Glen.”

She made a little pause before his name, and he smiled. Perhaps it was better that she should not be so easily familiar and call him Rob. The touch of embarrassment was more attractive.

“Bell,” she added, with a little furtive smile, avoiding his look, “is more troublesome than papa; and she will go and speak to papa when she takes it into her head.”

“Then you do not like Bell? I am wrong, I am very wrong; I see it. You did not mean that!”

“Not like—Bell? What would happen if you did not care for those that belong to you?”

“But Bell is only your servant—only your house-keeper.”