John William said nothing at all; but it was to him the visitor now looked appealingly.
“It isn't that I shouldn't like it—that isn't it at all—it's that you wouldn't like me! Oh, you don't know what I am. You don't, I tell you straight. I'm not fit to come and stay here—I should put you all about so—there's no saying what I shouldn't do. You can't think how glad I am to have seen you all. It's a jolly old place, and I shall be able to tell 'em all at home just what it's like. But you'd far better let me rest where I am—you—you—you really had.”
She had given way, not to tears, indeed, but to the slightly hysterical laughter which had characterised her entry into the parlour when John William was looking through the crack. Now she once more made her laughter loud, and it seemed particularly inconsequent. Yet here was a sign of irresolution which old David, as the wisest of the Teesdales, was the first to recognise. Moreover, her eyes were flying from the weather-board farmhouse to the river timber down the hill, from the soft cool grass to the peaceful sky, and from hay-stack to hen-yard, as though the whole simple scene were a temptation to her; and David saw this also.
“Nonsense,” said he firmly; and to the others, “She'll come back and stay with us till she's tired of us—we'll never be tired of you, Missy. Ay, of course she will. You leave her to me, Mrs. T.”
“Then,” said Missy, snatching her eyes from their last fascination, a wattle-bush in bloom, “will you take all the blame if I turn out a bad egg?”
“A what?” said Mrs. Teesdale.
“Of course we will,” cried her husband, turning a deaf ear to John William, who was trying to speak to him.
“You promise, all of you!”
“Of course we do,” answered the farmer again; but he had not answered John William.
“Then I'll come, and your blood be on your own heads.”