“Yes, it’s too late!” repeated Frances almost fiercely; “you belong to your mother’s people, not to us. You know there is—a difference. If we were all little, it wouldn’t matter; but Austin and I are too old not to feel—to feel—”
“To feel shame of me, Missy?” suggested Jim quietly.
The peasant lad was standing erect and calm, and his grave eyes hardly hinted at the agony which had come to him with the breaking of his happy dream. If his imagination had idealized this young sister of his, as well as a future which, in truth, would have been impossible as he had pictured it, he could find blame for no one save himself. His memory still dwelt tenderly on his grandfather, and he now wondered how he ever could have supposed that the daintily-reared young Morlands would have a thought of toleration for him and his claim of brotherhood.
“How can we help feeling ashamed? It’s not our fault!” reiterated Frances bitterly.
“You didn’t feel shame to speak to me at the smithy,” said Jim.
Then Frances, hardly knowing how to account for sensations of repulsion which she knew to be unworthy, broke into child-like tears.
“You—you were a very nice blacksmith,” she sobbed, “and your house was clean and tidy, and we liked to see the forge.”
“But we don’t exactly want a blacksmith-brother?” added Austin interrogatively, while he looked curiously at his sister.
Frances seized his hand, and tugged it nervously.
“Oh, Austin, come away!”