She tried to speak, but her lips would not obey. She wanted to guard herself, but her arms sank to her sides.
"Listen," he continued, "I delight in you, every hour that I see you. Every day you grow dearer to me. You are the sunshine of the house, but you keep up your feud with me, just as if I were positively your arch-enemy, or God knows what monster."
She shut her eyes, and swayed as if she must lie down and fall asleep.
"And look here," he began again. "If I have teased you a little now and then, you must take it in good part. While I have been away, all of you have just got into the habit of doing what you like. But I want to inculcate method and order; and you, too, my dear child, I would have fall in with my rules. And that won't be so difficult, for I shall require nothing very dreadful of you. Will you agree? Say yes, please. Do me the favour."
Whereupon she dropped down on the wooden stump, and covering her face with her hands, began to cry bitterly.
"What a quaint young thing it is," he thought. "Instead of throwing herself into my arms, which I, as a good uncle, deserve, she sits down and howls."
He placed himself beside her, and looked down on her head. Slowly, half uncertain, he raised his left hand. "May I?" he wondered, and let it glide gently over her damp hair, which shone, red as a fox, in the firelight.
Then she clung with both hands to his arm, and leaning her head against it, whispered, still sobbing--
"Why--why are you so horrid to me?"
"When have I been horrid? I have always meant to be good to you, child."