“About Mace?” said Gil, quietly.
“Yes, about my child,” said the founder.
“I think so, too,” said Gil, calmly, but with the bronze hue of his cheek becoming a little more deeply tinted.
“Oh! you do,” said the founder, with a peculiar hesitancy, now it had come to the point, and an aspect of being slightly in awe of the other and his calm, firm way—the peculiar quiet assertion of one born to and accustomed to command.
“I do,” said Gil, gazing him full in the eyes; “and I am glad that you have opened a subject I wanted to discuss.”
“Then it is soon done,” said the founder; “and look here, Gil, my dear lad, after the talk is over, we go back to our old positions as good friends, and it is to be as if we had never spoken.”
“Have no fear,” said Gil, smiling; “as I told you, we shall not quarrel.”
“Well, then, look here,” said the founder, making a plunge at once into the subject. “Gil Carr, you are growing too intimate with my child.”
“Indeed!” said Gil, raising his eyebrows. “Let me see, Master Cobbe: it is sixteen years since Wat Kilby brought me, a delicate boy of twelve, low from an attack of a fever caught in the Western Isles, and you and your good wife nursed me into strength.”
“Yes, yes, quite true,” said the founder, hastily. “Poor Rachel! poor Rachel!” he muttered, and his face clouded.