The Indian Maiden Read Online Free PDF Page A

suppose. He’s the one looking for a husband,” she said crossly, “for me. And as I love him, the least I can do for him is to visit here as he wishes me to do, for a while at least. I’ve been here almost a month. But I want to go home,” she whispered very softly, and as she spoke it, he could swear he read that barely suppressed longing and loneliness for home in the dejected droop of her neck as well as he’d ever read it in anyone’s face.
    “You’re quite sure then that you don’t care to shop around and pick up a nice inexpensive English husband? ” he asked pleasantly.
    “Oh no,” she replied at once, shaking her head in the negative so many times that several slips of hair slid loose to tempt him unmercifully.
    “Is it anything we’ve said?” he asked in hurt tones, and then was about to explain his jest as he would to most young women, since they usually took him quite literally, when she pleased him enormously by saying at once, “I’ve nothing against the English, believe me. I just don’t care to marry as yet. Not anyone, of any nationality. But knowing that you’ve been sent specifically for that purpose and having your hosts know it as well, makes it all that much more uncomfortable. I don’t want Grandfather to think I haven’t tried, and I don’t want to actually deceive him. He knows how I feel, you see, but he’s so sure I’ll meet my match here ... How long, do you think, would a person be expected to have to stay on before they gave up on such a search?” she asked.
    “That depends,” he said thoughtfully, “entirely on how old Grandfather is.”
    She chuckled. He was just as unexpected a person as his entrance had hinted at. He was very pleasant, one of the nicest gentlemen she’d met since she’d come here. So she turned her head and grinned at him. It was difficult talking with someone you couldn’t see, but, on the whole, she discovered as she quickly turned back to stare down the long, dark arched tunnel of evergreens again, it was more comfortable than keeping your gaze averted as he studied your profile, and far easier than looking directly into those kind and amused light eyes.
    “I’ll probably leave for home,” she said, “in the autumn. I thought I’d wait until Will gets himself a wife, for I doubt Grandfather would expect me to stay on here alone. Will’s looking for an English lady to call his own. He’s originally from London, you see, and came to America when he was very young. We arrived here together because he’s worked with Grandfather forever and now he’s made his fortune, he’s come back here to settle down, and Grandfather asked him to look after me. ... Do you know that I’ve told you more about us in a few moments than I’ve ever told half the people who pepper me with questions?” she said wonderingly.
    “It’s because I promised you something in return, don’t forget,” he explained. “And I’m sure you didn’t forget, you’re a canny Yankee trader. Now then, since you’re going to stay for an indefinite time, I think you might well have use for that advice. Don’t tease them, Miss Hamilton,” he said seriously, “they’ll believe anything you choose to tell them so it would be too easy for a bright young woman like yourself to mislead them. It’s no sport casting for fish in a barrel. But it’s not your sportsmanship I worry about, it’s the fact that they have great power, and can make you very wretched indeed if they’ve a mind to, and if they’re given the opportunity as well.”
    “What?” she said in amazement. “Are you funning me now in revenge for my earlier stories? What can they possibly do to me, my lord? Are you going to treat me to tales of chains and dungeons in return for my stories about snakes?”
    When she was done laughing, he went on to say, very clearly, very seriously, “They can give you a name, Miss Hamilton, which is far heavier to bear than chains, and they can tell tales about you