"I've wanted to talk with you for two days, but I shan't detain you now for I happen to know that your granddaughter is hunting for you already.

I'll come up to-morrow and chat awhile in the barn." Reuben bowed and passed on, a little flattered by the other's intimate tone, while Gay followed Kesiah into the drawing-room, and put a question to her which had perplexed him since the night of his arrival.
"Aunt Kesiah, was old Reuben Merryweather on friendly terms with my uncle ?" She started and looked at him with a nervous twitching of her eyelids.
"I think so, Jonathan, at least they appeared to be.

Old Reuben was born on the place when the Jordans still lived here, and I am sure your uncle felt that it would be unjust to remove him.

Then they fought through the war together and were both dangerously wounded in the same charge." He gazed at her a moment in silence, narrowing his intense blue eyes which were so like the eyes of Reuben's granddaughter.
"Did my uncle show any particular interest in the girl ?" he inquired, and added a little bitterly, "It's not fair to me that I shouldn't know just where I am standing." "Yes, he did show a particular interest in her and was anxious that she should be educated above her station.

She was even sent off to a boarding-school in Applegate, but she ran away during the middle of the second session and came home.