"Aren't you satisfied with your present Master?"
"Oh!"—It was a cry of genuine distress, of heartfelt disclaim. "You know I didn't mean that! But you won't always be here, and when you've gone—why then—"
Again he had to control the involuntary movement of his left arm.
"But I'm not going for months yet. Don't let us cross a bridge till we come to it. Your head-line promises all sorts of wonderful things. And your heart-line—" he turned her hand more fully to the light.
In the Rector's study the labourer was speaking, standing shufflingly on the margin of the Turkey carpet. The Rector listened, his hand on an open folio where fat infants peered through the ornamental initials.
"And so I come straight up to you, Sir, me being a father and you the same, Sir, for all the difference betwixt our ways in life. Says I to myself, says I, and bitter hard I feels it too, I says: 'George,' says I, 'you've got a daughter as begun that way, not a doubt of it—holdin' of hands and sittin' close alongside, and you know what's come to her!'"
The Rector shivered at the implication.
"Then I says, says I: 'Like as not the Rector won't thank you for interferin'. Least said soonest mended,' says I."
"I'm very much obliged to you," said the Rector difficultly, and his hand shook on Ambrosius's yellow page.
"You see, Sir," the man's tone held all that deferent apology that truth telling demands, "gells is gells, be they never so up in the world, all the world over, bless their hearts; and young men is young men, d—n them, asking your pardon, Sir, I'm sure, but the word slipped out. And I shouldn't ha' been easy if anything had have gone wrong with Miss, God bless her, all along of the want of a word in season. Asking your pardon, Sir, but even young ladies is flesh and blood, when it comes to the point. Ain't they now?" he ended appealingly.