"Yes, well. And his mother, too: she is a dear old thing, and but that she has an undeniable penchant for tobacco, would be perfection. Guardy, you must forgive him."
"My dear child, I can't."
"Not when I ask you?" in a tone of purest astonishment.
"Not even then. Ask me something else,—in fact, anything,—and I will grant it, but not this."
"I want nothing else," coldly. "I have set my heart on freeing this poor boy and you refuse me: and it is my first request."
"It is always your first request, is it not?" he says, smiling a rather troubled smile. "Yesterday——"
"Oh, don't remind me of what I may have said yesterday," interrupts Miss Chesney, impatiently: "think of to-day! I ask you to forgive Heskett—for my sake."
"You should try to understand all that would entail," speaking the more sternly in that it makes him positively wretched to say her nay: "if I were to forgive Heskett this time, I should have every second man on my estate a poacher."
"On the contrary, I believe you would make them all your devoted slaves.