“Ay, and you, my lassie?”
“Yes, father. I have tried very hard not to think about him, but—Yes, I do love him very dearly, and I’m going to be his wife. He said he would speak to you.”
“Yes, my dear, and he has spoken to me.”
“Oh!” she cried, as she reached up to lay her hands upon the keeper’s shoulders, and gaze inquiringly in his eyes.
“It was all one big blunder, my dear,” he said; “you ought never to have gone up to the house, and learned things to make you above your station. I used to think so, as I sat here o’ night’s and smoked my pipe, and say to myself, ‘She’ll never care for the poor old cottage again.’”
Judith looked up quickly, and her arm stole round her father’s neck.
“And then,” she whispered, “you said to yourself, ‘It is not true, for she’ll never forget the old home.’”
“You’re a witch, Judy,” he cried, drawing her to him, with his face brightening a little. “I did. And if it could have been that you’d wed the captain, and gone up to the house among the grand folk, you would have had me there; you would not have been ashamed of the old man—would you?”
“Why do you ask me that, dear?” said Judith, with her lips quivering. “You know—you know.”
“Yes,” he said, “I know. But we shall have to go away from the old place, Judy, for it can’t never be.”