“What have you been doing then?”
“I—I—haven’t been at the House,” stammered Daisy.
Joe turned sharply round.
“Have you been a-walking with Tom, then?”
“No, mother, I only met him—coming home—and he walked beside me,” said the girl, with crimson cheeks.
“Theer, theer, theer,” said Joe, interposing, “let the bairn alone. Daisy, my lass, mak’ me a round o’ toast.”
How Joe was going to dispose of a round of toast after the meal he had already devoured was a problem; but Daisy darted a grateful look at him, made the toast—which was not eaten—and then, after the things were cleared away, read for an hour to her father, straight up and down the columns of the week-old county paper, till it was time for bed, without a single interruption.
But Mrs Banks made up for it when they went to bed, and the last words Joe heard before going to sleep were—
“Well, Joe, I wash my hands of the affair. It’s your doing, and she’s your own bairn.”
And Joe Banks went to sleep, and dreamed of seeing himself in a new suit of clothes, throwing an old shoe after Daisy as she was being carried off by Richard Glaire in a carriage drawn by four grey horses, the excitement being such that he awoke himself in the act of crying “Hooray!” while poor Daisy was kneeling by her bedside, sobbing as though she would break her heart.