"Wait a minute, Miss Margaret, I want to say something to you," he said.
I looked at him, surprised. Was he going to ask me to intercede with Joyce for him? If so, he had come very decidedly to the wrong person. But something in his face made me look away.
"I won't keep you long," said he.
And then he paused, while I waited with my face turned aside.
"I don't think you'll take what I'm going to say amiss, Miss Margaret," he went on at last. "I've known you such a long time—ever since you were a little girl—that I don't feel as though I were taking a liberty, as I should if you were a stranger. I don't suppose you remember how I used to help you scramble out of the dikes when you got a ducking on the marsh after the rainfalls, and how I used to take you into the house-keeper's room at the Manor to have your frock dried, so that you should not get into a scrape? But I remember it very well, and the cakes that you used to love with the blackberry jam in them, and the rides that you used to have on my back after the school feasts."
He paused a moment, as though for an answer. I gave him none, but I remembered all that he alluded to very well.
"You don't mind my speaking, do you?" repeated he again.
"Oh no, I don't mind," answered I, with a little laugh.
"Having known you like that all your life, I care for you so much," continued he, "that I can't bear to see you doing yourself an injustice."