Moreover, it was
recklessness in which, if she stayed where she was, she would have to
bear a part or be guilty of rudeness, of which she felt incapable. She
took a third course, and, raising her eyebrows at the unnecessarily loud
knocking with which the young man announced his arrival, retreated in
good order into the garden, where her father, in a somewhat heated
condition, was laboriously planting geraniums. She had barely reached
him when Bella, in a state of fearsome glee, came down the garden to tell
the captain of his visitor.
[Illustration: "Bella, in a state of fearsome glee, came down the garden
to tell the captain of his visitor."]
"Who?" said the latter, sharply, as he straightened his aching back.
"Young Mr. Hardy," said Bella, impressively. "I showed 'im in; I didn't
ask 'im to take a chair, but he took one."
"Young Hardy to see me!" said the captain to his daughter, after Bella
had returned to the house. "How dare he come to my house? Infernal
impudence! I won't see him."
"Shall I go in and see him for you?" inquired Kate, with affected
artlessness.
"You stay where you are, miss," said her father.
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