"I almost forgive your perverse old grandfather everything, for the sake of his last words. You are a pretty little thing—and better than you are pretty," he added fondly.
"Then mind you appreciate me," I replied.
He said there was no fear that he should not.
We left Leigh the next day, and Cornelius, according to the philosophic injunction of Kate, locked up the house and brought the key in his pocket.
CHAPTER XIII.
Our journey was short and pleasant. Cornelius seemed quite gay again. In order to surprise Kate, we stepped down from the cab at the end of the lane, talking of that evening seven years before, when he had brought me along the same path to the same dwelling.
"Oh, Cornelius," I exclaimed, looking up at him, "was it not kind of Mr
Thornton to let me come back?"
He looked down at me, and smiled as he replied:
"I don't know that he meant it as any particular kindness to me; but that he could do me none greater, I mean to show him yet."
The lane was long; we walked slowly; the evening was one of early autumn's most lovely ones, brown and mellow, our path was strewn with fallen leaves, but the beauty of summer was still in the sky, and its warmth in the glorious setting sun. As we approached the well-known door, we saw Kate in her hair, standing on the threshold and talking to two little Irish beggars, whom she was scolding and stuffing at the same time. As she turned round, she saw us, and looked at us with incredulous astonishment. I ran up to her, and threw my arm around her neck.