She rose as she spoke and the squire rose and opened the door for her and then stood and watched her mount the darkening stairway. At the first reach, she turned and bent her lovely face and form towards him. The joyful anticipations in her heart transfigured her. She was radiant. Her face shone and smiled; her white throat, and her white shoulders, and her exquisite arms, and her firm quick feet seemed to have some new sense given them. You would have said that her body thought and that her very voice had a caress in it as she bridged the space between them with a “Thank you, dear, dear daddy! You are the very kindest father in all the world!”
“And thou art his pet and his darling!” With these words he went back to his wife. “She is justtip-on-top,” he said. “There’s no girl I know like her. She sits in the sunlight of my heart. Why, Annie, she ought to make a better marriage than Jane, and Jane did middling well.”
“Would thou think Harry Bradley a good match?”
“I wouldn’t put him even in a passing thought with Katherine. Harry Bradley, indeed! I am fairly astonished at thee naming the middle class fellow!”
“Katherine thinks him all a man should be.”
“She will change her mind in London.”
“I doubt that.”
“Thou lets her hev opinions and ideas of her awn. Thou shouldn’t do it. Jane will alter that. Jane will tell her how to rate men and women. Jane is varry clever.”
“Jane is no match for Katherine. Dost thou think Antony Annis will be?”
“I wouldn’t doubt it.”