She slipped down on her knee and threw herself on his breast, clinging to him with all her young strength.
"Are you nothing?" she cried. "Is all your love nothing? Are all your beautiful, good thoughts for my happiness 'nothing'? Is your loneliness nothing? Shall I leave you here to live by yourself in the new home which is strange to you—after you have given up the old one you knew and loved for me? Oh! what has made you think I have no heart, and no soul, and nothing to be grateful with? Have I ever been bad and cruel and hard to you that you can think it?"
She poured forth her love and grief and tender reproach on his breast with such innocent fervor that he could scarcely bear it. His eyes were wet too, and his furrowed, sunburnt cheeks, and his breath came short and fast while he held her close in his arms.
"Honey," he said, just as he had often spoken to her when she had been a little child, "Louisianny, honey, no! No, never! I never hed a thought agin ye, not in my bottermost heart. Did ye think it? Lord, no! Thar aint nothin' ye've never done in yer life that was meant to hurt or go agin me. Ye never did go agin me. Ye aint like me, honey; ye're kinder finer. Ye was borned so. I seed it when ye was in yer cradle. I've said it to Ianthy (an' sence ye're growed up I've said it more). Thar's things ye'd oughter hev thet's diff'rent from what most of us wants—it's through you a-bein' so much finer. Ye mustn't be so tender-hearted, honey, ye mustn't."
She clung more closely to him and cried afresh, though more softly.
"Nothing shall take me away from you," she said, "ever again. I went away once, and it would have been better if I had stayed at home. The people did not want me. They meant to be good to me, and they liked me, but—they hurt me without knowing it, and it would have been better if I had stayed here. You don't make me feel ashamed, and sad, and bitter. You love me just as I am, and you would love me if I knew even less, and was more simple. Let me stay with you! Let us stay together always—always—always!"
He let her cry her fill, holding her pretty head tenderly and soothing her as best he could. Somehow he looked a little brighter himself, and not quite so pale as he had done when she found him sitting alone trying to do the new house "jestice."
When at length they went in to supper it was almost dusk, and he had his arm still around her. He did not let her go until they sat down at the table, and then she brought her chair quite close to his, and while he ate looked at him often with her soft, wet eyes.