"You are a good rider, Dilly. I'm glad you did not get out of practice. Your guardian must have been indulgent."
"We had a ride every fine morning. He was very fond of it."
He was glad to have her talk about her visit. The life would be very different here. Not only were all his interests here, and he was getting to be one of the rising men of the town, but the Bradins held the house they lived in and he was as a son to them. Barbe had never been parted from her mother. And though he had gone to his country's call with their consent he knew his own father would never forgive a second defection. No, he must stay here, and his daughter must marry here.
Felix begged her to come out with him and see the great bee tree where father was going to take up the honey some night, but she was tired and curled herself up in the grandfather chair. Her thoughts wandered a little.
"I don't believe you are paying a bit of attention to me!" the boy flung out angrily. "I wish you hadn't gone to that old city. You were twice as good fun before. And I s'pose you won't climb trees or run races or—or do any of the things that used to be such good fun. What in the world did you do there?"
"Oh, I'll try them with you again. But I've been out with father all the afternoon——"
"And now he'll be so taken up with you he won't want me. Girls haven't any call to be out so much with men."
"Not when they are our own fathers?" smiling.
"Well—there's knitting, and spinning, and sewing, and darning stockings——"
"I thought you were begging me to go out and have a good romp with you?"