"Jealous!" she repeated. The word had no clearly definite meaning to her.
"Maybe I have crowded you out a little. But you will find as you grow that there is a great deal of love that can be given and not make any one the poorer."
She had been following out her own thought and hardly minded his truism.
"Why"—how could he define it to the child's limited understanding? "Jealousy is wanting all of another's regard and not being willing that any other shall have a share. Not being willing that grandad shall care for me."
"He wasn't glad at first." She could not forget that.
"It wasn't a question of wanting or not wanting me that made him captious. He could not enjoy the English being beaten. I do not understand that in him since he means to spend all the rest of his life here, and has never wanted to go back. He was only a little boy, not older than you when he came here. And he fought in the battle of Braddock's defeat. Though the French gained the day it was no great victory for them, for they gave up their plan of taking possession of all the country here about. And he has not much faith in the rebels, as he used to call us, and didn't see what we wanted to fight for. And he is glad to have me back. But he isn't going to love you any less."
"Oh, yes he does," she returned quickly. "I used to ride with him and he never asks me now. And he takes you away—then they all come asking for you and if everybody likes you so much——"
"And don't you like me a little?" He gave a soft, wholesome laugh and it teased her. She hung her head and returned rather doubtfully—"I don't know."
"Oh, and you are my one little girl! I love you dearly. Are you not glad to have me come back and bring all my limbs? For some poor fellows have left an arm or a leg on the battlefield. Suppose I had to walk with a crutch like poor old Pete Nares?"