CHAPTER LXIX
When Cosmo rushed forth from Melmar with his heart a-flame, and made his way out through the trees to the unsheltered and dusty highway, the sound of the Sabbath bells was just beginning to fall through the soft summer air, so bright with the sunshine of the morning. Somehow, the sound seemed to recall him, in a moment, to the sober home life out of which he had rushed into this feverish episode and crisis of his own existence. His heart was angry, and sore, and wounded. To think of the usual familiar routine of life disgusted him—his impulse was to fly out of everybody’s reach, and separate himself from a world where everybody was ready to sacrifice the happiness of others to the merest freak or crochet of his own. But the far off tinkle of the Kirkbride bell, though it was no wonder of harmony, dropped into Cosmo’s ear and heart like the voice of an angel. Just then, his mother, proudly leaning upon Huntley’s arm, was going up the bank of Tyne to thank God for her son’s return. Just then, Desirée, who had left Melmar before him, was walking softly, in her white summer robes, to the Sabbath service, little doubting to see Cosmo there; and out of all the country round, the rural families, in little groups, were coming up every path, all tending toward the same place. Cosmo sprang impatiently over a stile, and made his way through a corn field, where the rustling green corn on either side of the path, just bursting from the blade, was almost as tall as himself. He did not care to meet the church goers, who would not have been slow to remark upon his heated and uneasy looks, or even upon the novel circumstance of his being here instead of at “the kirk.” This same fact of itself communicated an additional discomfort to Cosmo. He felt in his conscience, which was young and tender, the unsabbatical and agitating manner in which he had spent the Sabbath morning, and the bell seemed ringing reproaches into his ear as he hastened through the rustling corn. Perhaps not half a dozen times before in his life, save during the time of his travels, had Cosmo voluntarily occupied the Sabbath morning with uses of his own. He had dreamed through its sacred hours many a time, for he was “in love”, and a poet; but his dreams had gone on to the cadence of the new minister’s sermon, and taken a sweeter echo out of the rural psalms and thanksgivings; and he felt as a Scottish youth of religious training was like to feel under such circumstances—his want of success and present unhappiness increased by the consciousness that he was using the weekly rest for his own purposes, thinking his own thoughts, doing his own business, and filling, with all the human agitation of fears and hopes, selfish and individual, the holy quiet of the Sabbath day.
And when Cosmo reached Norlaw, which was solitary and quiet like a house deserted, and when the little girl who helped Marget in the dairy rose from her seat at the clean table in the kitchen, where, with her Bible open before her, she was seeking out “proofs” for her “questions,” to let him in, not without a wondering air of disapproval, the feeling grew even stronger. He threw himself into his mother’s easy-chair, in the dining-parlor, feeling the silence grow upon him like a fascination. Even the Mistress’s work-basket was put out of the way, and there was no open book here to be ruffled by the soft air from the open window. Upon the table was the big Bible, the great jug full of red roses, and that volume of Hervey’s Meditations, which the Mistress had certainly not been reading—and the deep, unbroken Sabbath stillness brooded over him as if it were something positive and actual, and not a mere absence of sound. And as he thought of it, the French household at Melmar, with its fancies, its agitations, its romantic plans and troubles of feeling, looked more and more to Cosmo discordant and inharmonious with the time; and he himself jarred like a chord out of tune upon this calm of the house and the Sabbath; jarred strangely, possessed as he was by an irritated and injured self-consciousness—that bitter sensation of wrong and disappointment, which somehow seemed to separate Cosmo from every thing innocent and peaceful in the world.
For why was it always so—always a perennial conspiracy, some hard, arbitrary will laying its bar upon the course of nature? Cosmo’s heart was sore within him with something more than a vexed contemplation of the anomaly, with an immediate, pursuing, hard mortification of his own. He was bitterly impatient of Madame Roche in this new and strange phase of her character, and strangely perplexed how to meet it. For Cosmo had a poetic jealousy of the honor and spirit of his best beloved. He felt that he could not bear it, if Desirée for his sake defied her mother—he could not tolerate the idea that she was like to do so, yet longed, and feared, and doubted, full of the most contradictory and unreasonable feelings, and sure only of being grieved and displeased whatever might happen. So he felt as he sat by himself, with his eyes vacantly fixed upon the red roses and the big Bible, wondering, impatient, anxious beyond measure, to know what Desirée would do.
But that whole silent day passed over him unenlightened; he got through the inevitable meals he could scarcely tell how—replied or did not reply to his mother’s remarks, which he scarcely noticed were spoken at, and not to him, wandered out in the afternoon to Tyneside and the Kelpie, without finding any one there—and finally, with a pang of almost unbearable rebellion, submitted to the night and sleep which he could not avoid. To-morrow he had to return to Edinburgh, to go away, leaving his brother in possession of the field—his brother, to whom Madame Roche meant to give Desirée, in compensation for his lost fortune. Cosmo had forgotten all about Katie Logan by this time; it was not difficult, for he knew scarcely any thing; and with a young lover’s natural pride and vanity, could not doubt that any man in the world would be but too eager to contend with him for such a prize as Desirée Roche.
And to-morrow he had to go away!—to return to Mr. Todhunter’s office, to read all the trashy stories, all the lamentable criticisms, all the correspondence, making small things great, which belonged to the Auld Reekie Magazine. Cosmo had not hitherto during his life been under much compulsion of the must, and accordingly found it all the harder to consent to it now. And he was growing very weary of his occupation besides. He had got a stage beyond his youthful facility of rhyme, and was, to say the truth, a little ashamed now of his verses, and of those flowery prose papers, which the Mistress still read with delight. He began to suspect that literature, after all, was not his vocation, and at this moment would rather have carried a laborer’s hod; or followed the plow, than gone to that merchandise of words which awaited him in Edinburgh. So he rose, sullen and discontented, ready to quarrel with any or every one who thwarted him, and feeling toward Huntley rather more like an enemy than like a brother.
And Cosmo had but just risen from the early breakfast table when a note was put into his hand. Marget brought it to him, with rather an ostentation of showing what she brought, and Cosmo had to read it under the eyes of his mother and Huntley, neither of whom could help casting many glances at the young man’s disturbed face. It was the first letter he had ever received from Desirée—no wonder that he hurried out when he had glanced at it, and did not hear that the Mistress called him back; for it was a very tantalizing, unsatisfactory communication. This is what Desirée said:—
“I knew it would be so. Why are you so restless, so impatient—why do you not be calm and wait like me? Mamma has set her heart upon what she says. She will not yield if you pray to her forever. She loves me, she loves you; it would make her happy; but, alas, poor mamma! She has set her thoughts upon the other, and will not change. Why do you vex her, you, me, every one? Be silent, and all will be well.
“For I am not in haste, Monsieur Cosmo, if you are. I am able to wait—me! I know you went away in great anger, and did not come to church, and were cross all day, and your mother will think I am to blame. But if you will be impatient, am I to blame? I tell you to wait, as I shall, to be good and silent, and see what will happen; but you do not regard me.
“Farewell, then, for a week. I write to you because I can not help it this time, but I will not write again. Be content, then, restless boy; au revoir!
“Desirée.”
Cosmo turned it round and round, and over and over, but nothing more was to be made of it. Desirée had not contemplated the serious discontent of her lover. She thought he would understand and be satisfied with her playful letter, and required nothing more serious. Perhaps, had she thought he required something more serious, the capricious little Frenchwoman would have closed her heart and refused it. But, however that may be, it is certain that Cosmo was by no means so much pleased as he expected to be when he saw the note first, and prepared himself to leave home with feelings scarcely at all ameliorated, shaking hands abruptly with Huntley, and having a very cold parting with his mother. He carried a discontented heart away with him, and left discontent and vexation behind, and so trudged into Kirkbride, and drove away to Edinburgh on the top of the coach, troubled with the people behind and the things before him, and in the most unamiable humor in the world.
CHAPTER LXX
“Well, Huntley, and what’s your opinion of our grand new neighbors?” said the Mistress. They were returning together on that same Monday from a formal call at Melmar; perhaps the first time on which the Mistress’s visit to Madame Roche had been made with any pleasure. Mrs. Livingstone came proudly through the Melmar grounds, leaning upon Huntley’s arm. She had gone to exhibit her son; half consciously to exult over her richer neighbor, who had no sons, and to see with her own eyes how Huntley was pleased with his new friends.
“I think,” said Huntley, warmly, “that it is no wonder people raved about Mary of Melmar. She is beautiful now.”
“So she is,” said the Mistress, rather shortly. “I canna say I am ony great judge mysel’. She’s taen good care of her looks—oh ay, I dinna doubt she is.”
“But her daughters don’t seem to inherit it,” added Huntley.
“Ay, lad—would ye say no’?—no’ the little one?” said the Mistress, looking up jealously in his face. She was the very reverse of a matchmaker, but perhaps it is true that women instinctively occupy themselves with this interesting subject. The Mistress had not forgotten Katie Logan, but in the depths of her heart she thought it just possible that Huntley might cast a favorable eye upon Desirée.
“No, not the little one,” said Huntley, laughing; “though I like her best of the two; and was it that invalid whom you supposed the wife of Pierrot? Impossible!—any thing so fragile and delicate would never have married such a fellow.”
“She’s delicate, no doubt,” said the Mistress, “but to be weakly in body is no’ to be tender in the mind. Eh, what’s that among the trees?—black and ill favored, and a muckle cloak about him—it’s just the villain’s sel’!”
“Hush, he sees us,” said Huntley; “let us meet him and hear if he is going to Melmar. It seems unbelievable that so gentle an invalid should be his wife.”
The Mistress only said “Humph!” She was sorry for Marie, but not very favorable to her—though at sight of the Frenchman all her sympathies were immediately enlisted on behalf of his devoted wife. Pierrot would have avoided them if he could, but as that was impossible, he came forward with a swaggering air, throwing his cloak loose, and exhibiting a morning toilette worthy of an ambitious tailor or a gentleman’s gentleman. He took off his hat with elaborate politeness, and made the Mistress a very fine bow, finer than any thing which she had seen in these parts for many a day.
“Let me trust you found Madame Pierrot, my charming wife, well and visible,” said the adventurer, with a second ironical obeisance, “and my gracious lady, her mamma, and pretty Desirée? I go to make myself known to them, and receive their embraces. I am excited, overjoyed—can you wonder? I have not seen my wife for ten years.”
“And might have suffered that trial still, if it had not been for the siller,” said the Mistress; “eh, man, to think of a woman in her senses taking up with the like of you!”
Fortunately the Mistress’s idiomatic expressions, which might not have been over agreeable had they been understood, were not quite comprehensible to Monsieur Pierrot. He only knew that they meant offense, and smiled and showed his white teeth in admiration of the malice which he only guessed at.
“I go to my castle, my chateau, my fortune,” he said; “where I shall have pleasure in repaying your hospitality. I shall be a good host. I shall make myself popular. Pierrot of Melmar will be known everywhere—it is not often that your dull coteries are refreshed by the coming of a gentleman from my country. But I am too impatient to linger longer than politeness demands. I have the honor to bid you very good morning. I go to my Marie.”
Saying which, he swaggered past with his cloak hanging over his shoulders—a romantic piece of drapery which was more picturesque than comfortable on this summer day. The Mistress paused to look after him, clasping with rather an urgent pressure her son’s arm, and with an impulse of impatient pity moving her heart.
“I could never bear a stranger nigh in my troubles,” she cried, at last, “but yon woman’s no’ like me. She’s used to lean upon other folk. What can she do, with that poor failing creature at one side of her and this villain at the other? Huntley, my man! she’s nae friend of mine, but she’s a lone woman, and you’re her kinsman. Go back and give her your countenance to send the vagabone away!”
“Mother, I am a stranger,” cried Huntley, with surprise and embarrassment; “what could I do for her? how could I venture indeed to intrude myself into their private affairs? Cosmo might have done it who knows them well, but I—I can not see a chance of serving them, perhaps quite the reverse. If you are right, this man belongs to the family, and blood is thicker than water. No, no; of course I will do what you wish, if you wish it; but I do not think it is an office for me.”
And the Mistress, whose heart had been moved with compassion for the other widow who had no son, and who had suggested voluntarily that Huntley should help her, could not help feeling pleased nor being ashamed of her pleasure, when he declined the office. He, at least, was not “carried away” by the fascinations of Mary of Melmar. She took a secret pleasure in his disobedience. It soothed the feelings which Cosmo’s divided love had aggrieved.
“Weel, maybe it’s wisest; they ken best themselves how their ain hearts are moved—and a strange person’s a great hindrance in trouble. I couldna thole it mysel’,” said the Mistress; “I canna help them, it’s plain enough—so we’ll do little good thinking upon it. But, Huntley, my man, what’s your first beginning to be, now that you are hame?”
At this question, Huntley looked his mother full in the face, with a startled, anxious glance, and grew crimson, but said not a word; to which the Mistress replied by a look, also somewhat startled, and almost for the moment resentful. She did not save him from his embarrassment by introducing then the subject nearest to his heart. She knew, and could not doubt what it was, but she kept silent, watching him keenly, and waiting for his first words. Madame Roche would have thrown herself into his arms and wept with an effusion of tenderness and sympathy, but this was the Mistress, who was long out of practice of love-matters, and who felt her sons more deeply dear to her own heart than ever lover was in the world. So it was with a little faltering that Huntley spoke.
“It is seven years since I went away, and she was only a girl then—only a girl, though like a mother. I wonder what change they have made upon Katie Logan, these seven years?”
“She’s a good lassie,” said the Mistress; “eh, Huntley, I’m ower proud!—I think naebody like my sons; but she’s a very good lassie. I havena a word to say against her, no’ me! I canna take strangers easy into my heart, but Katie Logan’s above blame. You ken best yoursel’ what you’ve said to one another, her and you—but I canna blame ye thinking upon her—na,” said the Mistress, clearing her throat, “I am thankful to the Almighty for putting such a good bairn into your thoughts. I’m a hard woman in my ain heart, Huntley. I’ll just say it out once for a’. You’ve a’ been so precious to me, that at the first dinnle I canna bide to think that nane of you soon will belong to your mother. That’s a’—for you see I never had a daughter of my ain.”
The Mistress ended this speech, which was a long speech for her, with great abruptness, and put up her hand hurriedly to wipe something from her eye. She could be angry with Cosmo, who confided nothing to her, but her loving, impatient heart could not stand against the frankness of his brother. She made her confession hurriedly, and with a certain obstinate determination—hastily wiped the unwilling tear out of the corner of her eye, and the next moment lifted her head with all her inalienable spirit, ready, if the smallest advantage was taken of her confession, to gird on her armor on the moment, and resist all concessions to the death.
But Huntley was wise. “We have said nothing to each other,” he answered quickly, “but I would fain see Katie first of all.”
This was about the sum of the whole matter—neither mother nor son cared to add much to this simple understanding. Katie had been absent from Kirkbride between four and five years, and during all that time the Mistress had only seen her once, and not a syllable of correspondence had passed between her and Huntley. It might be that she had long ago forgotten Huntley; it might be that Katie never cared for him, save with that calm regard of friendship which Huntley did not desire from her. It was true that the Mistress remembered Katie’s eyes and Katie’s face on that night, long ago, when a certain subtle consciousness of the one love which was in the hearts of both, gave the minister’s daughter a sudden entrance into the regard of Huntley’s mother. But the Mistress did not tell Huntley of that night. “It’s no for me to do,” said the Mistress to herself, when she had reached home, with a momentary quiver of her proud lip. “Na, if she minds upon my Huntley still—and wha could forget him?—I’ve nae right to take the words out of Katie’s mouth; and he’ll be all the happier, my puir laddie, to hear it from hersel’.”
It was a magnanimous thought; and somehow this self-denial and abnegation—this reluctant willingness to relinquish now at last that first place in her son’s heart, which had been so precious to the Mistress, shed an insensible brightness that day over Norlaw. One could not have told whence it came; yet it brightened over the house, a secret sunshine, and Huntley and his mother were closer friends than, perhaps, they had ever been before. If Cosmo could but have found this secret out!
CHAPTER LXXI
In the meantime, Cosmo, angry with himself and everybody else, went into Edinburgh to his weekly labor. It was such lovely summer weather, that even Edinburgh, being a town, was less agreeable than it is easy to suppose that fairest of cities; for though the green hill heights were always there to refresh everybody’s eyes, clouds of dust blew up and down the hilly streets of the new town, which had even still less acquaintance then than now with the benevolent sprinkling of the water-carts. If one could choose the easiest season for one’s troubles, one would not choose June, when all the world is gay, and when Nature looks most pitiless to sad hearts. Sad hearts! Let every one who reads forgive a natural selfishness—it is the writer of this story, who has nothing to do with its events, who yet can not choose but make her sorrowful outcry against the sunshine, sweet sunshine, smiling out of the heart of heaven! which makes the soul of the sorrowful sick within them. It is not the young hero in the agitation of his young troubles—warm discontents and contests of life—the struggles of the morning. Yet Cosmo was vexed and aggravated by the light, and heat, and brightness of the fair listless day, which did not seem made for working in. He could not take his seat at Mr. Todhunter’s writing-table, laden with scraps of cut-up newspapers, with bundles of “copy,” black from the fingers of the printers, and heaps of proof sheets. He could not sit down to read through silly romances, or prune the injudicious exuberance of young contributors. Unfortunately, the contributors to the Auld Reekie Magazine were almost all young; it had not turned out such an astounding “start” as the Edinburgh Review; it had fallen into the hands of young men at college, who, indisputably, in that period of their development, however great they may become eventually, are not apt to distinguish themselves in literature; and Cosmo, who had just outgrown the happy complacence of that period, was proportionately intolerant of its mistakes and arrogances, and complained (within himself) of his uncongenial vocation and unfortunate fate. He was not fit to be editor of the Auld Reekie. He was not able for the labor dire and weary woe of revising the papers which were printed, and glancing over those which were not—in short, he was totally dissatisfied with himself, his position and his prospects, very probably, but for his love-dream, Cosmo would have launched himself upon the bigger sea in London, another forlorn journeyman of literature, half conscious that literature was not the profession to which he was born; but the thought of Desirée held him back like a chain of gold. He could see her every week while he remained here, and beyond that office of Mr. Todhunter’s in which perseverance and assiduity, and those other sober virtues which are not too interesting generally to young men, might some time make him a partner, Cosmo could not for his life have told any one what he would do.
After he had endured his work as long as he could in this quiet little den, which Mr. Todhunter shared with him, and where that gentleman was busy, as usual, with paste and scissors, Cosmo at last tossed an unreadable story into the waste-paper basket, and starting up, got his hat. His companion only glanced up at him with an indignant reproof.
“What! tired? Are they so awful bad?” said Mr. Todhunter; but this model of a bookseller said no more when his young deputy sallied out with a nod and a shrug of his shoulders. The proprietor of the Auld Reekie Magazine was one of those rare and delightful persons—Heaven bless their simple souls!—who have an inalienable reverence for “genius,” and believe in its moods and vagaries with the devoutness of a saint.
“Of course I would exact common hours from a common young man,” said Mr. Todhunter, “but a lad of genius is another matter. When he’s in the vein, he’ll get through with his work like a giant. I’ve seen him write four papers with his own hand after the twenty-third of the month, and the magazine as sharp to its time, notwithstanding, as if he had been a year preparing. He’s not a common lad, my sub-editor;"—and Cosmo quite took credit with his employer on the score of his fits of varying energy and his irregular hours.
Cosmo, however, sauntered away through the bright and busy streets without giving himself so much credit. The young man was thoroughly uncomfortable, self-displeased, and aggravated. He knew well enough that it was not the impatience of genius, but only a restless and disturbed mind, which made his work intolerable on that long summer afternoon. He was thinking of Desirée, who would not bear thinking of, and whom he supposed himself to have bitterly and proudly relinquished—of Madame Roche, with her ridiculous fancy in respect to Huntley—and of Huntley himself, who it was just possible might accept it, and take Desirée’s reluctant hand. It seemed to Cosmo the strangest, miserable perversion of everybody’s happiness; and he could not help concluding upon all this wrong and foolishness coming to pass, with all the misanthropical certainty of disappointed youth. Cosmo even remembered to think of Katie Logan, by way of exaggerating his own discontent—Katie, who quite possibly had been faithful to Huntley’s memory all these seven long years.
He was thus pondering on, with quick impatient step, when he caught a glimpse of some one at a distance whose appearance roused him. The figure disappeared down the Canongate, which Cosmo was crossing, and the young man hastened to follow, though this famous old street is by no means a savory promenade on a hot summer afternoon. He pushed down, notwithstanding, along the dusty burning pavement, amid evil smells and evil sounds, and passengers not the most agreeable. Women on the outside stairs, with dirty babies in their arms, loud in gossip, and unlovely in apparel—ragged groups at the high windows, where noble ladies once looked out upon the noble highway, but where now some poor housemother’s washing, thrust out upon a stick, dallied with the smoky air, and was dried and soiled at the same moment—hopeless, ill-favored lads and girls, the saddest feature of all, throwing coarse jokes at each other, and, indeed, all the usual symptoms of the most degraded class of town population, which is much alike everywhere. Cosmo threaded his way among them with disgust, remembering how he had once done so before with Cameron, whom he was now pursuing, and at a time when his own anticipations, as well as his friend’s, pointed to the sacred profession in which the Highlandman now toiled. That day, and that conversation, rose vividly before Cosmo. It sickened his sensitive heart to realize the work in which Cameron was employed; but when his mind returned to himself, who had no profession, and to whose eyes no steady aim or purpose presented itself anywhere, Cosmo felt no pleasure in the contrast. This was not the sphere in which a romantic imagination could follow the footsteps of the evangelist. Yet, what an overpowering difference between those steps and the wanderings of this disturbed trifler with his own fortune and youth.
But Cameron still did not reappear. Somewhat reluctantly Cosmo entered after him at the narrow door, with some forgotten noble’s sculptured shield upon its keystone, and went up the stair where his friend had gone. It was a winding stair, dark, close, and dirty, but lighted in the middle of each flight by a rounded window, through which—an extraordinary contrast—the blue sky, the June sunshine, and a far-off glimpse of hills and sea, glanced in upon the passenger with a splendor only heightened by the dark and narrow frame through which the picture shone. Cosmo paused by one of these windows with an involuntary fascination. Just above him, on the dusky landing, were two doors of rooms, tenanted each by poverty and labor, and many children, miserable versions of home, in which the imagination could take no pleasure. In his fastidious distaste for the painful and unlovely realities, the young man paused by the window;—all the wealth of nature glowing in that golden sunshine—how strange that it should make its willing entrance here!
He was arrested by a voice he knew—subdued, but not soft by nature, and sounding audibly enough down the stairs.
“I don’t know if he can do them harm—very likely no’—I only tell you I heard somebody speak of him, and that he was going to Melmar. Perhaps you don’t care about the family at Melmar? I am sure, neither do I; but, if you like, you can tell Cosmo Livingstone. It’s nothing to me!”
“I’ll tell him,” said Cameron. “Who was the man? Do you know?”
“He was French; and I’m sure a vagabond—I am sure a vagabond!” cried the other. “I don’t know if you can mind me, but Cosmo will—I’m Joanna Huntley. I care for none of them but Desirée. Her mother and her sister may take care of themselves. But we were great friends, and I like her; though I need not like her unless I please,” added Joanna, angrily; “it’s no’ for her sake, but because I canna help it. There—just tell Cosmo Livingstone! Perhaps it’s nothing, but he might as well know.”
“I’ll tell him,” said Cameron, once more.
Then there came a sound of a step upon the stair—not a light step, but a prompt and active one—and Joanna herself, grown very tall, tolerably trim, rather shabby, and with hair of undiminished redness, came rapidly down the narrow side of the spiral stair, with her hand upon its rib of stone. She started and stopped when she had reached almost as far as Cosmo’s window—made as though she would pass him for the first moment, but finally drew up with considerable hauteur, a step or two above him. Joanna could not help a little offense at her father’s conqueror, though she applauded him in her heart.
“I’ve been in London,” said Joanna, abruptly, entering upon her statement without any preface. “I saw a man there who was inquiring about Melmar—at least about the eldest daughter, for he did not know the house—and Oswald directed him every step of the way. I’ll no’ say he was right and I’ll no’ say he was wrong, but I tell you; the man was a rascal, that’s all I know about him—and you can do what you like now.”
“But stop, Miss Huntley; did you seek Cameron out to tell him?” said Cosmo, with gratitude and kindness.
“I am Miss Huntley now,” said Joanna, with an odd smile. “Patricia’s married to an officer, and away, and Oswald’s in London. My brother has great friends there. Did I seek Mr. Cameron out? No. I was here on my own business, and met him. I might have sought you out, but not him, that scarcely knows them. But it was not worth while seeking you out either,” added Joanna, with a slight toss of her head. “Very likely the man is a friend of theirs—they were but small people, I suppose, before they came to Melmar. Very likely they’ll be glad to see him. But Oswald was so particular telling him where they were, and the man had such an ill look,” added Joanna, slowly, after a pause, “that I can not think but that he wanted to do them an ill turn.”