Linton was aware of her blunder.
Squire Sloughman was cordially welcomed, and after being seated a
while, observed:
"You have got a visitor, I see," pointing to the stranger's hat lying
on the table beside him.
"Yes, Etta's got company. The stranger that boarded at Miss Plimpkins'
last summer. He sent Etta a valentine, and has now come himself,"
returned Miss Henrietta.
"A valentine! what for?"
"To ask her to have him, surely. And I suppose he'll be taking her off
to town to live, pretty soon."
"And you, what will you do? It will be awful lonely here for you,"
said the squire.
"Oh! he's coming out now," thought Miss Henrietta. And she gave him a
better chance by her reply:
"Well, I don't know that anybody cares for that. I guess no one will
run away with me."
But she was disappointed; it came not, what she hoped for, just then.
Yet the Squire seemed very uneasy. At length he said:
"I got a valentine myself, to-day."
"You! What sort of a one? Comic, funny, or real in earnest?" asked
Miss Henrietta.
"Oh! there is nothing funny about it--not a bit of laugh; all cry."
"Land! a crying valentine."
"Yes, a baby."
"Squire Sloughman!" said Miss Henrietta, with severe dignity.
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