'She does not, worse luck!' Madge on her knees replied with childish audacity.
'I hope when she returns she may not be offended by my intrusion.'
'Don't hope it,'—she smiled—'such hope would be vain.'
He could not help laughing.
'Is it dutiful then of you'—he paused—'or of me?'
'Which do you prefer—to sleep in the barn, or that I should be undutiful and disobey my stepmother?'
In a minute she gave her chin that lift in the air that he had seen before.
'You need not feel uncomfortable about Mrs. King; the house is really mine, not hers, and father always had his house full of company. I am doing my duty to him in taking you in, and in making a feast to please Eliz when the stepmother happens to be away and I can do it peaceably. And when she happens to be here I do my duty to him by keeping the peace with her.'
'Is she unkind to you?' he asked, with the ready, overflowing pity that young men are apt to give to pretty women who complain.
But she would have him know that she had not complained.