"I don't believe she would," encouragingly; "you try it."
As they stood thus hand in hand, Watts, knowing that every word was heard, essayed his mischievous worst.
"Dear Know-not-thine-own-heart," he called, "Lady of Denial"—"Heart's Sorrow."
Her head, shining with its coils of brown hair, appeared at the little oriel opening. Eleanor Ledyard smiled down her reproof. "Watts, how am I to keep at this thing which you know I must do if you two don't go away and amuse yourselves quietly; have I two children instead of one?"
"I wish you had——" murmured the man. He let something come into his eyes that Eleanor had often seen there; the deep blue eyes with the black lashes tried to meet this with womanly severity. Somehow this morning the look failed. Watts Shipman had come far to see a fair woman, and a spark of the tradition of the cavaliers and men of romance was in his blood. A lady at an oriel window was a person who must ultimately do one thing. Come down! The lawyer, his head bared, looked belligerently back, and something in his gaze had made Eleanor turn from the window quickly.
"I guess my mother is coming down," said little Pudge.
"She'd better," said Watts grimly, "or I'd have had to go and get her."
"But you couldn't," said Pudge earnestly, "not if she didn't want you to." Watts turned and looked at the small, earnest face.
"Dear lamb, I know that," groaned the man. "I know that; don't rub it in."