'Why, "no, sir," if you 'ont promise?'
'Because I could never do what you and my mistress would dislike.'
'Then you can promise, perhaps, never to marry my son Owen without my consent.'
'Yes, sir, I can—do—that—'
Gladys said these words very slowly, and turned very pale as she said them. She clasped her hands firmly together with a visible effort.
'Well, you're an odd girl; you 'ont promise one thing, and yet you as good as promise it in another way. What's the difference?'
Again the colour came and went.
'It would be wrong, sir, in me to make a son disobey a father, and I wouldn't like to do it; so I can promise that; and maybe you may change.'
'Then you love the boy? Tell me the treuth.'
Gladys began to cry, and was a few moments before she could say, somewhat more resolutely than usual,—