There was, indeed, a
trace of hauteur and imperiousness in her look and manner; but it
did not ill become her distinguished figure and face. Wade, however,
remembered her sweet earnestness when she was playing leech to his
wound, and chose to take that mood as her dominant one.
"She must have been desperately annoyed with bores and boobies," he
thought. "I do not wonder she protects herself by distance. I am afraid
I shall never get within her lines again,--not even if I should try
slow and regular approaches, and bombard her with bouquets for a
twelvemonth."
"But, Wade," says Peter, "all this time you have not told us what good
luck sends you here to be wrecked on the hospitable shores of my Point."
"I live here. I am chief cook and confectioner where you see the smoking
top of that tall chimney up-stream."
"Why, of course! What a dolt I was, not to think of you, when Churm told
us an Athlete, a Brave, a Sage, and a Gentleman was the Superintendent
of Dunderbunk; but said we must find his name out for ourselves. You
remember, Mary. Miss Damer is Mr. Churm's ward."
She acknowledged with a cool bow that she did remember her guardian's
character of Wade.
"You do not say, Peter," says Mrs. Skerrett, with a bright little look
at the other lady, "why Mr. Churm was so mysterious about Mr. Wade."
"Miss Damer shall tell us," Peter rejoined, repeating his wife's look of
merry significance.
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