“Don’t speak to me, my dear; don’t speak to me,” was his greeting to his daughter when she pounced upon him, with a light-hearted laugh, from behind the hedge of one of his own cornfields.
He was contemplating the ripening crop with a most rueful face.
“Why not, papa? Perhaps I may have some good news for you.”
“Good news! Oh, no,” he answered, dolefully, shaking his head. “It must be for somebody else if you have any good news. So go away, or I may be cross; and I don’t want to speak crossly to you, my darling.”
There was not much fear of such a thing, evidently; for when she persisted in coming to him, and giving him a hearty kiss, the wrinkles in his forehead began immediately to clear away.
“It’s all your fault, you minx,” said he, looking affectionately at the girl’s bonny face. “You’ve turned the heads of all the lads about here, and then it’s your poor old father that they ‘wreak their vengeance on,’ as the melodramas say.”
“Why, papa,” said the girl, blushing, “who’s been teasing you now? Produce him, and let me whither him up with a glance.”
“Well, the first thing I heard this morning is that the old brute, John Oldshaw, has been making all sorts of mischief about me to Lord Stannington’s agent—says I’m ruining the land, and all that; and it’s all because he’s angry at poor Mat’s humble admiration for you, I know. He says I’m not fit to be a farmer. Now what do you think of that?”
The enormity of this allegation made Mr. Denison quite unable to proceed. But Olivia shook her head and laughed.
“I think, papa, that if all Mr. Oldshaw’s statements were as veracious as that, he would be a much honester man than he is.”