“Don’t, father. You know I was never so happy anywhere as here.”
“But you are grown such a lady now; I’m ’most afraid of you.”
“No you are not. I sometimes wish that Mrs Rolph had never had me at the house.”
“Why?”
“Because it makes you talk to me like that.”
“Well, then, I won’t say another word. There, I must be off, but—”
He hesitated as if in doubt.
“Yes, father.”
“Well, I was only going to say, I see young Caleb has come back to the village, and knowing how he once—”
“Come back, father!” cried Judith, with a look of alarm.