“I didn’t heed them! It wasn’t a horrid book!”

“It was a horrid book. You left it behind you, and I took it with me. I laid it on my study table and went out again. When I came home to dinner my wife brought it to me and said, ‘Oh, Tom, how can you read such books?’ ‘My dear,’ I answered, ‘I don’t know what is in the book, I haven’t read a word of it.’ “

“And then you told her where you found it?”

“I did not.”

“What did you do with it?”

“I said to her, ‘If it’s such a bad book, here goes!’ And I threw it into the fire.”

“Then I’m not going to know the end of the story! But I can send to London for another copy! How thoughtful of you, Mr. Wingfold, to destroy my property! But you didn’t tell her where you found it?”

“I did not.”

Mrs. Wylder was silent. She seemed a little ashamed, perhaps a little softened. Wingfold bade her good morning. She did not answer him.

Scarcely had Mr. Wingfold left the room when in came Barbara in her riding habit, with the glow of joyous motion on her face. She had just ridden from Mortgrange.

“I’ve had such a ride, mama!” she said, “straight as any crow could fly through the back fields.”

“You’re a madcap,” said her mother. “You’ll be brought home on a stretcher someday. How long were you at Mortgrange this time?”

“A week.”

“Your father has his heart set on your marrying Mr. Lestrange. I can see it perfectly, and I won’t have it!”

“But why shouldn’t I marry Mr. Lestrange?”

“Because your father has his heart set on it, I tell you! Isn’t that enough? I will not have it—not even if it breaks your heart—there!”

Barbara burst out in a laugh that rang like a bronze bell.

“Break my heart for Mr. Lestrange! You needn’t be uneasy, mama. I don’t like Arthur Lestrange one bit and would never marry him. He’s too polite. I would sooner fall in love with the bookbinder.”

“The bookbinder? Who’s that?”

“There’s a man binding—or mending, rather—the books in the library. He’s going to teach me how to shoe Miss Brown. Papa wouldn’t like me to marry a blacksmith—I mean a bookbinder—would he?”

“Certainly not.”

“Then would you, mama?” said Bab demurely, with fun in her eyes.

“Tease me anymore with your nonsense, and I’ll set your father on you! Be off with you!”

— Ten —

Barbara and Her Critics

Though everybody at Mortgrange liked Barbara, most of them had some different fault to find with her. All agreed that she needed taming—except sir Wilton, who allowed the wildness, but would not hear of the taming. The hour of the morning or the night at which she would not go wandering alone about the park, or even outside it, had not yet been discovered.

“Why don’t you look better after your friend, Theo?” said her father when Barbara’s chair was empty at dinner.