“Hoots! lassie,” broke in her mother; “are ye makin’ love till a man, a gentleman, afore my verra een?”
“He did it first, mother,” answered Margaret, with a smile.
A pang of hope shot through Hugh’s heart.
“Ow! that’s the gait o’t, is’t? The bairn’s gane dementit! Ye’re no efter merryin’ a gentleman, Maggy? Na, na, lass!”
So saying, the old lady, rather crossly, and very imprudently, left the room to fill the teapot in the kitchen.
“Do you remember this?” said Margaret,—who felt that Hugh must have misunderstood something or other,—taking from her pocket a little book, and from the book a withered flower.
Hugh saw that it was like a primrose, and hoped against hope that it was the one which he had given to her, on the spring morning in the fir-wood. Still, a feeling very different from his might have made her preserve it. He must know all about it.
“Why did you keep that?” he said.
“Because I loved you.”
“Loved me?”