"Then hear it from me. You shall be my child. And if you will love me you shall be very dear to me. You shall be my own child,—as dear as my own. I must either love his wife very dearly, or else I must be an unhappy man. And she must love me dearly, or I must be unhappy."
"I will love you," she said, pressing his hand.
"And now let me say some few words to you, only let there be no bitterness in them to your young heart. When I say that I take you to my heart, you may be sure that I do so thoroughly. You shall be as dear to me and as near as though you had been all English."
"Shall I?"
"There shall no difference be made. My boy's wife shall be my daughter in very deed. But I had not wished it to be so."
"I knew that;—but could I have given him up?"
"He at any rate could not give you up. There were little prejudices;—you can understand that."
"Oh yes."
"We who wear black coats could not bring ourselves readily to put on scarlet garments; nor should we sit comfortably with our legs crossed like Turks."
"I am your scarlet coat and your cross-legged Turk," she said, with feigned self-reproach in her voice, but with a sparkle of mirth in her eye.