Garnett found him feeding the sparrows, but he desisted at the young
man's approach, and said at once: "You will not thank me for
bringing you all this distance."
"If that means that you are going to send me away with a refusal, I
have come to spare you the necessity," Garnett answered.
Mr. Newell turned on him a glance of undisguised wonder, in which an
undertone of disappointment might almost have been detected.
"Ah--they've got no use for me, after all?" be said ironically.
Garnett, in reply, related without comment his conversation with
Hermione, and the message with which she had charged him. He
remembered her words exactly and repeated them without modification,
heedless of what they implied or revealed.
Mr. Newell listened with an immovable face, occasionally casting a
crumb to his flock. When Garnett ended he asked: "Does her mother
know of this?"
" Assuredly not!" cried Garnett with a movement of disgust.
"You must pardon me; but Mrs. Newell is a very ingenious woman.
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