"Well, my dear, no shame to you," added the old woman; "we have all thought the same thing. But maybe it isn't. Maybe Meg knows what he has come for, and is thinking over what answer she'd give him now."
"It wouldn't take me long to think what answer I should give you," cried I, fairly out of patience. "If the squire wanted an answer from me I could give him one without asking your advice, I dare say. But he's not such a fool."
"No, the squire's no fool," retorted Deb; "but I'm thinking other folk aren't so very far off it. The Lord grant you don't all of you get a lesson stiffer than you reckoned for one of these days, my dears," added she, with a little sigh.
We said no more on the subject. Joyce soon went up-stairs on some household job, and Deb and I went on silently with our work. But before my cakes were ready for the oven mother called me into the parlor. The squire had left. As Joyce had hoped, he had spoken to mother about me.
I knew it the moment I went into the room. I am sure he had not spoken willingly; but that he had said something, I knew the moment I looked at mother. There was a flush upon her cheek and a light in her eye that told of surprise, but of pride and pleasure also. It proved how there was never really any favoritism in her for my sister, for she showed not the slightest disappointment that the squire's proposal was for me and not for Joyce.
"Margaret," said she, sitting down in the big wooden chair opposite to father, who leaned forward in his favorite attitude, as though about to rise—"Margaret, the squire has just been here." She stopped a moment and half smiled. "The squire is very fond of you, Margaret," she added, gravely, going at once, as was her way, to the heart of the matter.
"The squire is fond of us all, I know," I answered, evasively. "He has known us such a long time."
"But he is fond of you in a different way to that," continued mother. "He loves you as a man loves the woman whom he could make his wife."
I did not answer for a bit, and mother, fancying, I suppose, that I must be as surprised as she was at the news, went on: "I had thought once it would be different, but now many things are explained. I think he has loved you ever since you began to grow up. It ought to make any girl feel proud, I'm sure."
"Yes," said I, softly. And I did feel proud, quite as proud as mother could wish, but I was not going to show it in the way that mother expected.