“That was Lizzie Pezzack, the girl who sold you her doll, once. She’s a servant down at the farm where I lodge.”
Honoria said no more for the moment, but seated herself on the Dane’s anvil, while Taffy chose a bar of iron and stepped out to examine Aide-de-camp’s hoof. He returned and in silence began to blow up the fire.
“I dare say you were astonished to see me,” she remarked at length.
“Yes.”
“I’m still forbidden to speak to you. The last time I did it, grandfather beat me.”
“The old brute!” Taffy nipped the hot iron savagely in his pincers.
“I wonder if he’ll do it again. Somehow I don’t think he will.”
Taffy looked at her. She had drawn herself up, and was smiling. In her close-fitting habit she seemed very slight, yet tall, and a woman grown. He took the bar to the anvil and began to beat it flat. His teeth were shut, and with every blow he said to himself “Brute!”
“That’s beautiful,” Honoria went on. “I stopped Mendarva the other day, and he told me wonders about you. He says he tried you with a hard-boiled egg, and you swung the hammer and chipped the shell all round without bruising the white a bit. Is that true?”
Taffy nodded.