‘I have been in America this last year, looking about,’ he said. ‘I am cut off, if not with a shilling, still with a very poor remnant of what I ought to have had. What with my mother and sisters, and all the rest--but I cannot expect you to be interested in this,’ he added, looking at her pointedly, and then at Isabel. ‘I am sorry you’ve been disappointed,’ said Miss Catherine. ‘I hope you have good prospects now.’ He shrugged his shoulders and then he stretched out his hand for one of the folding-stools which stood about the deck, and sat down in front of the little party, commanding it. ‘I am thinking of settling in America,’ he said. ‘I have heard it is a very fine thing to do,’ Miss Catherine answered with alacrity, ‘for a young man.’ And then there was a pause--Isabel did not even look up this time; but her absorbed face as she arranged her child’s dress, the nervous twitch of her fingers, her apparent blank of inattention, told their own tale to the anxious observer at her elbow. Did he observe it too? He did not seem to look at Isabel, but--‘it cannot be for me he is coming so close, and staying so long,’ Miss Catherine said to herself. ‘I had thought of Scotland once,’ he said; ‘I have let my own place; no chance of keeping that up at present--and if I could hear of a good farm----’ ‘Dear me, I would think that was a poor business for the like of you,’ said Miss Catherine: ‘farming makes no fortunes nowadays. For a young active man, with no encumbrance, I would say America was the thing.’ ‘I suppose it is,’ he said, with a little sigh; and looked at Isabel with eyes that were almost wistful. She took no notice of him. She behaved in every respect as Miss Catherine would have had her behave, had she instructed her previously in the matter, holding up little Margaret to old Marion, taking share in the play, and when that was no longer necessary, giving her attention to her baby’s dress, keeping her eyes and hands and mind occupied. Just as she ought to have behaved, but yet, in the very perfection of this conduct, there was something which alarmed her guardian. The calmness was too elaborate, the composure too carefully put on; after the first start too, and anxious look of her appealing eyes. But it was clear there was nothing more to be made of this. He pushed his seat away from them a little as if owning himself discomfited. ‘And you are going away?’ he said. ‘Only for a day or so--only--not for long I mean--to pay a visit,’ said Miss Catherine, feeling the warfare carried into her own country; and then there was another embarrassed pause. ‘You will excuse us, I am sure, Mr. Stapylton,’ she went on taking courage. ‘But you see Mrs. Lothian has scarcely gone at all into society--I mean has seen nobody since. And you will perceive that here in public, with all these folk about, and seeing any stranger for the first time----’