“We’re cousins——”
“If you want her, I suppose you won’t let that hinder you. She’ll have a nice bit of money, and if you like her——”
“I like her all right—I shan’t go out to Canada with her though. I shall stay at the Ram—for the sake of the life.”
“It’s a poor life, that!” said the father, ruminating.
George laughed. “A bit mucky!” he said—“But it’ll do. It would need Cyril or Lettie to keep me alive in Canada.”
It was a bold stroke—everybody was embarrassed.
“Well,” said the father, “I suppose we can’t have everything we want—we generally have to put up with the next best thing—don’t we, Lettie?”—he laughed. Lettie flushed furiously.
“I don’t know,” she said. “You can generally get what you want if you want it badly enough. Of course—if you don’t mind——”
She rose and went across to Sam.
He was playing with the kittens. One was patting and cuffing his bare toe, which had poked through his stocking. He pushed and teased the little scamp with his toe till it rushed at him, clinging, tickling, biting till he gave little bubbles of laughter, quite forgetful of us. Then the kitten was tired, and ran off. Lettie shook her skirts, and directly the two playful mites rushed upon it, darting round her, rolling head over heels, and swinging from the soft cloth. Suddenly becoming aware that they felt tired, the young things trotted away and cuddled together by the fender, where in an instant they were asleep. Almost as suddenly, Sam sank into drowsiness.