“Yet I have my doubts, sir,” says I, “if you can be half as glad to see me as I am to see you.”
“The time has appeared so long,—has it, Marigold?”
“I won’t say that, sir, considering its real length; but—”
“What a start, my good fellow!”
Ah! I should think it was! Grown such a woman, so pretty, so intelligent, so expressive! I knew then that she must be really like my child, or I could never have known her, standing quiet by the door.
“You are affected,” says the gentleman in a kindly manner.
“I feel, sir,” says I, “that I am but a rough chap in a sleeved waistcoat.”
“I feel,” says the gentleman, “that it was you who raised her from misery and degradation, and brought her into communication with her kind. But why do we converse alone together, when we can converse so well with her? Address her in your own way.”
“I am such a rough chap in a sleeved waistcoat, sir,” says I, “and she is such a graceful woman, and she stands so quiet at the door!”
“Try if she moves at the old sign,” says the gentleman.