"I'm glad you weren't in this morning. I was on thorns an' briars all the time for fear. The men were in howling an' shouting until you'd thought they'd upset the government. An' they will, too. We're not going to pay tax on our very bread. Why they're coming the old game that they fit about for seven years. And grandad's fierce. He'd turn us all back to England to-morrer."
"I don't know——" Daffodil looked up confused.
"No, I s'pose not. Women has husbands to think for them an' gals needn't think about anything but beaux. Did you have any over there?" nodding her head. "Body o' me! but you've grown tall. You ain't a little girl any more. And we'll have to look you up a nice beau."
"Must everybody be married?"
Norah put both hands on her lips and laughed.
"Well, I don't know as there's a must, only old maids ain't of much account an' get sticks poked at 'em pretty often. I wouldn't be one for any money. I'd go out in the woods and ask the first man I met to marry me."
"How old must you be?" asked Daffodil soberly, thinking of Miss Wharton.
"Well, if you ain't married by twenty, lovers ain't so plenty, and at twenty-four you're pushed out of the door and at thirty you might as well go down. But you're not likely to have to ring the bell for them. My! but you're pretty, only I wish your cheeks were redder. I guess you've been housed up too much. I want to hear all about the sort of time you had! Wasn't the old gentleman a little stiff?"
"Oh, no. He seemed so much like great-grandfather to me. I loved him a great deal. And there was a splendid housekeeper. The maid was sweet and she cried when I came away."
"Little Girl," called her father.