“It is not nonsense,” she said very quietly. “Aunt Briscoe once wished me to live there, and I would not. But I am willing to go now. Father, you may take me, or you may give me up. If you give me up, I know that Uncle Robert will adopt me.”
I began to understand what Maimie was aiming at. She meant to go to “The Gables,” to set things right, if possible, between Aunt Briscoe and my husband. The thought flashed upon me as I listened, and how I loved the child for her self-devotion! But could we let her go? What would Robert say? What would Jack think? Yet, if she and Churton settled it thus, had I any power to refuse my consent?
“And suppose I simply leave you alone for the present, and by-and-by claim you?” he asked roughly, as if to frighten her. “Who is to say me nay then?”
She drew up her fair head, and looked at him with a mantling blush. “I can be out of your reach then,” she said. “There is more than one who wishes to marry me.”
This shot struck. Maimie told me afterwards that she had kept it in reserve, only to be used in case of emergency.
Churton was visibly disconcerted.
“Absurd!—a chit of your age!” he said.
But from that moment Maimie had the game in her own hands.
“Well, well; we will think about it,” he said. “Perhaps the best plan would be to board you here for the present,—pay Robert so much.”
“O yes,” passed my lips.