"The squire will not ask you, Margaret," said she. "I suppose he's timid. I suppose all good men are timid before the woman they love, however much they may really be worthy of her—the worthier perhaps the more so. It seems strange, but the squire'll never ask you to your face. So you'd better make up your mind to it. Your answer'll have to come through your parents in the old-fashioned way."
I went back to my occupation of pulling the fringe of the table-cover.
"But there's no need for you to say anything yet a while, lass," said father, after a few minutes.
It was the first time he had spoken, and I looked at him reassured.
"Oh yes, I think I had just as well say what I have to say now," I answered, with sudden boldness. "What's the good of waiting? I sha'n't change my mind. I can never change my mind. I can't marry Squire Broderick, if that's what you mean he wants."
There was silence. Mother seemed to be actually stupefied.
"But perhaps, after all, it isn't what he wants," added I, cheerfully, after a bit. "He's fond of me, because he has known me ever since I've been a little girl, and—well, because he is fond of me. But perhaps, after all, he doesn't want to marry me. I shouldn't think he would be so silly. I shouldn't be a bit of credit to him. I shouldn't be a bit suited to it. Not because father's a farmer, but because—well, because I'm not that sort of girl, like Joyce."
Mother had found her tongue.
"That's for the squire to decide," said she. "I know well enough it's a rise for any daughter of mine to marry into the Brodericks. Yes, you may say what you like, Laban," insisted she, fearlessly, turning to father, who had looked up with the old fire in his eye. "Our family may be older than his, but as the world goes now he's above us, and marriage with him would be a rise for our child. And I think that it would be a very good thing for one of our girls to be wed with the squire, and that's the truth."