“Always, Mr Portlock, and you will agree that it is not strange that now I am grown a man I should love my little playmate Sage, whom I’ve known ever since the day you called at our house with her and Rue—poor little orphans, looking so pretty and helpless as they sat in black in your gig.”
“Ay! ay! that was a sad time, Luke Ross,” said the Churchwarden, thoughtfully. “Poor little bairns! mother and father in one sad week, Luke. Hah! well, I’ve never had any of my own, and I never think of ’em now but as if they had been born to me.”
“No, sir, I know that,” said Luke, smiling.
“And you want me to say thou mayst have Sage for thy wife. That’s the plain English of it, lad, eh?”
“Yes, sir—yes, sir,” cried Luke, excitedly; but delighted to have his task cut short.
“Ha!” said the Churchwarden, thoughtfully. “I expected as much. I said to myself that was what you would ask me when you came back.”
“And you consent, sir?” cried Luke, joyously.
There was a moment’s silence, while the Churchwarden crossed a sturdy, well-shaped leg over the other, Luke gazing the while upon his lips, until he spoke, and then sinking back, as if smitten, into his chair.
“No, my lad, I do not give my consent. I like thee, Luke, almost as well as if thou wast my own son, and I believe you’d make Sage a good husband; but, to be plain with you, I don’t like this schoolmastering and mistress work.”
“You don’t like it, sir!”