With perfect equanimity Mahala met the eyes of her stern parent, and realized that the time had arrived when she was past subterfuge, that she was facing a stern parent. She might as well get it over with because she really was both tired and sleepy, while she greatly desired a space of uninterrupted quiet in which she might think.
“He said that I was his ‘girl,’ and that when we finished school I was going to marry him. He was provoked about the bird. That’s what made him say it.”
“Has he ever said things like that to you before?” demanded Mahlon.
“He’s been saying that I was his girl ever since I can remember,” said Mahala; “but I’m not.”
“Oh, aren’t you?” asked Mahlon, and suddenly, to his daughter’s intense astonishment, he was playful, he was arch, there was a smile on his lips, a light in his eyes; and correspondingly, there was no smile on her lips and no trace of light in her eyes.
“Of course not, foolish!” she said immediately. “I am your girl, and Mother’s girl. How could I possibly be the girl of any boy in this town?”
“Um-m-m-m,” said Mahlon. “You will find, young lady, that you will be glad enough to be the girl of one of the boys of this town one of these days, when you have finished your education and the time comes to go to a home of your own. And I don’t know who there is that you know, or that you would be likely to know, that is so handsome or so admirably situated as Junior. Let me tell you, he did a mighty fine thing to-night, a manly thing, a praiseworthy thing.”
“Tell me,” said Mahala, delighted to have averted her father’s attention from the bird and herself.
And so, Mahlon told her how very praiseworthy had been Junior’s conduct in what she was constrained to admit had been a most embarrassing and difficult situation for her father.
“All right,” said Mahala, “that was fine of him. I do like him slightly better than I did before you told me that.”