‘I have been a great burden on you for the last year, father; but I won’t be so much longer. If I can’t go to service, I will provide for myself some way, don’t fear that.’
‘Ay, my lass, it will be as well. You’re a bonny lass, there’s no denying, but you don’t seem to care much for marriage, and when your mother and me is gone you’ll have a sore shift to provide for yourself if you have no work to do. I mentioned his lordship’s service because it seems to me as if it has left you pretty well unfit for anything else. Your hands and face and your constitootion ain’t fit for a farm-house, Nell, and that’s the truth. They improved you and they spiled you both up in London. You’re fitter for the town than the country, any one could see that with half an eye. But you’re a good girl, my dear, and mother and me, we both say that.’
‘Thank you, father,’ she replied, as she kissed him several times, more times than were necessary, according to the rough old farmer’s ideas—and then did the same by her mother.
‘Good-night, dear, dear mother,’ she murmured fervently. ‘You’ve been a good mother to your poor, thoughtless, useless Nell.’
‘Ay, that I have,’ replied Mrs Llewellyn, with the beautiful self-assurance of the poor, ‘but you’re worth it all the same.’
‘Thank you, dear, God bless you,’ said Nell gently, as she prepared to leave the room. At the door she turned and stood regarding the two old people with her lovely hazel eyes, as if she could not gaze enough at them.
‘You’re a rare fool,’ cried her mother gaily. ‘There, run away to your bed, do, and get up wiser in the morning.’
And then, as her daughter with a solemn smile disappeared, she remarked to her husband,—
‘I’m sometimes half afeared, father, if that girl ain’t a bit mazed. She do look at one so queer with them big eyes of hers. Did you notice her just now?’
‘Not I,’ replied the farmer. ‘I’ve other things to do besides noticing a maid’s eyes. So now come along to bed, wife, and forget all such rubbish, for we’ll have to be up betimes to make ready to receive his lordship.’