Freda turned away and very quietly re-arranged some of the books she had placed on the shelves.
“Oh, yes;” and she laughed with some bitterness but more sadness. “Did you think it possible that I, who am lame, and fit for nothing but a convent, where I can pray, and can work with my needle as well as the strong ones, should ever put myself on an equality with the girls who can dance, and ride, and row?”
Dick was overwhelmed. In her innocence, as she had misunderstood his cousin, so she was misunderstanding him.
“Now look here, Miss Mulgrave,” said he, as he brought his right hand heavily down on one of the bookshelves. “You are quite wrong. You have mistaken Bob’s meaning and mine altogether. Don’t you see that what he wanted was to get some sort of hold on you through me, since he couldn’t get it in any other way? And can’t you understand how mean it would be of me, and absurd (mean if I had any chance, and absurd as I haven’t) to come to you and talk about admiration and love and marriage, when I am just in the position of a farm-labourer about to be turned off?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, that your father’s refusal to—to have anything more to do with us has ruined us; so that Bob and my aunt will have to leave the farm and go to London.”
“And you, what will you do?”
“I shall stay on at the old place.”
“But, you won’t be comfortable!”
“More comfortable than I should be anywhere else. You see I’m not like the others, who just came to the old place when they had to let the Hall. I was brought up at the farm, and used to spend my holidays there. I was only annexed by my aunt and Bob when there was some dirty work to be done and it was seen that I might prove useful.”