Merrylips shook her head sternly.
"I'm daddy's daughter," she said, "and I will be none other's."
"Thou canst not help thyself," Will Lowry answered. "One day thou'lt wed, and so become some other man's daughter."
Then he added, and whether he spoke in jest or earnest Merrylips was too young to know:—
"Upon my word, when thou art five years older, I'll wed thee to my boy Herbert, and so I'll have thee for a daughter in thine own despite."
At least Will Lowry was so much in earnest that from that day he stopped promising Merrylips that some time she should go home to Walsover. Also he began to talk to her of his boy Herbert. He was going to bring Herbert to Larkland soon, he said, and so give her a playfellow of her own years. And she must teach Herbert to play at ball and run and leap, and not to be afraid of a horse.
"Thou art a better lad than he in some regards," said Herbert's father, with what sounded like a sigh. "He is overfond of his book, but a good lad, none the less, and you two shall be dear friends."
Merrylips did not feel drawn toward Herbert by this description, nor was she pleased at Lowry's hint that when she was older she should be Herbert's wife. Of course she knew that some day she should marry, and she knew that girls were often wives at fourteen. Still she did not wish to think of marriage yet, and especially of marriage with a boy who was overfond of his book.
But as the springtime passed, Merrylips grew so tired of Mistress Lowry's gloomy company that she began to think that it would be pleasant to have a boy of her own age to play with, even such a boy as Herbert. So she was more glad than sorry when Mistress Lowry told her, one bright day at Whitsuntide, that a sickness had broken out in Herbert's school, and next week Herbert would come home.
A little while after young Herbert came to Larkland. When he and Merrylips stood side by side, any grown person would have understood why poor Will Lowry wanted Merrylips for a daughter, and would have been a little sorry for him.