“It is the English temper.”
“Well, mother, things seem to be ordered in a very unhappy fashion but I suppose we might as well take to them at once. Indeed, we shall be compelled to do it, if so be, it pleases them above.”
“Just so,” answered Madam. “But, Katherine, The Hands of Compulsion generally turn out to be The Hands of Compassion.”
Katherine smiled happily, the door opened, and the next moment she gave the smile in a kiss to her father, as he clasped her fondly in his arms, crying, “Eh, my joy! I am glad to see thee!” Then the two women made that charming fuss over his “tired look,” which is so consoling to men fresh from the slings and arrows of an outrageous world that will not do as they want it to do.
In his family life the squire still retained many old-fashioned customs, and his dinner at one o’clock was a settled ceremony. This day, in the very middle of it, Katherine said, “I saw you, father, this morning when you were talking to Mr. Bradley on the Green—about ten o’clock.”
“And I saw thee trailing through the low meadows with Bradley’s son.”
“Yes, he came home last night.”
“And went out t’ varry next morning, to meet thee in t’ low meadow.”
“If you say, he happened to meet me in the low meadow, it would be better.”
“Whativer hed the lad to do in my meadow so early in the morning?”