She lingered at the open door, expecting Owen to say "Good-night." But May took her grandmother's hand and pulled her into the house, while he followed them. When they reached the lamp-lighted parlour, May, still holding her grandmother's hand with her left hand, stretched out her right to Owen, and gently drew him forward. Then she flung her left arm round the old woman's neck, and kissed her. There was no need for words. Mrs. Dobbs sank down, white and tremulous, in her great chair, while May nestled beside her on her knees, and tried to place Owen's hand, which she still clasped, in that of her grandmother. But the old woman brusquely drew her hand away.
"You have done wrong," she said, turning to Owen, and scarcely able to control the trembling of her lips. "I didn't think it of you. But men are all alike; selfish, selfish, selfish!"
"Why, granny!" exclaimed the girl, breathless with dismay. Then she started up with a flash of impetuous indignation, and stood beside her lover. "He is not selfish!" she said vehemently.
"Hush, May! Granny is right," said Owen in a low voice. "I told you that I feared I had done wrong."
Mrs. Dobbs still trembled, but she was struggling to regain her self-command. "You might have waited yet awhile," she said brokenly. "The child is young! You ought not to have bound her until you see your way more clear."
"Oh, believe me, I will not hold her bound," answered Owen. "I never meant that. I ought not to have spoken yet. I feared so before, and now that you say so, I know it. But I am not wholly selfish."
May had stood listening silently, looking, with wide eyes and parted lips, from one to the other. She now fell on her knees again beside her grandmother, and, clasping the old woman's hands in both her own, cried eagerly—
"But listen! If there was any fault, it was mine. I love him so much! And he's going away. Think of that, granny! Come here and kneel down beside me, Owen, and let her look you in the face. Think, if he had gone away and never told me! And I so fond of him! You didn't guess how I cried that night when I heard he was to leave England. He has made me so happy—so happy! And we can wait. We don't mind being poor. You said you were fond of him. And he is so good—and I love him so—and you to speak to him so cruelly! Oh, granny, granny!" The tears were pouring down her face, and dropping warm upon the wrinkled hands she held.
Suddenly Mrs. Dobbs opened her arms, and folding May in one of them, laid the other round Owen's shoulder as he knelt before her, and drew them both into her embrace.
"Come along, you two!" she said, sobbing and smiling. "I've got a precious pair of babies to look after in my old age. No more common sense between you than would lie on the point of a needle! No prudence, no worldly wisdom, no regard for society—nothing but love and truth; and what do you suppose they'll fetch in the market?"