“No, no; it is better not to risk offending him,” said Kate, calmly. “I remember, now, that this was one of his antipathies. Give me anything else, for I have not eaten to-day.”
While her stepmother went in search of something to offer her, Kate sat down beside the fire, deep in thought. She had removed her bonnet, and her long silky hair fell in rich masses over her neck and shoulders, giving a more fixed expression to her features, which were of deathlike paleness. And so she sat, gazing intently on the fire, as though she were reading her very destiny in the red embers before her. Her preoccupation of mind was such that she never noticed the opening of the door, nor remarked that her father had entered. The noise of a chair being moved suddenly startled her. She looked up, and there he stood, his hat on his head and his arms closely folded on his breast, at the opposite side of the fire.
“Well, lassie,” said he, after a long and steady stare at her, “ye hae left your place, or been turned oot o' it,—whilk is the case?”
“I came away of my own accord,” said she, calmly.
“And against my Leddy's wish?”
“No, with her full consent.”
“And how did ye do it? for in her last letter to my sel', she says, 'I desire ye, therefore, to bear in mind that any step she takes on this head'—meaning about going away—'shall have been adopted in direct opposition to my wishes.' What has ye done since that?”
“I have succeeded in convincing her Ladyship that I was right in leaving her!” said Kate.
“Was it the force of your poleetical convictions that impelled ye to this course?” said he, with a bitter grin, “for they tell me ye are a rare champion o' the rights o' the people, and scruple not to denounce the upper classes, while ye eat their bread.”
“I denounce no one; nor, so far as I know myself, is ingratitude amongst my faults.”