"Is that what you thought when you came to Dunbury?" she asked gravely.
"No. It is what I have learned to think since I have been in Dunbury."
"But you—you wouldn't want me to live here?" probed Carlotta.
"My child, I would rather you would live here than any place in the whole world. I've traveled a million miles since I saw you last, been back in the past with your mother. Things look different to me now. I don't want what I did for you. At least what I want hasn't changed. That is the same always—your happiness. But I have changed my mind as to what makes for happiness."
"I am awfully glad, Daddy darling," sighed Carlotta snuggling closer in his arms. "Because I came up here on purpose to tell you that I've changed my mind too. If Dunbury is good for gout maybe—maybe it will be good for what ails me. Do you think it might, Daddy?" For answer he held her very tight.
"Do you mean it, child? Are you here to tell that lad of yours you are ready to come up his Hill to him?"
"If—if he still wants me," faltered Carlotta. "I'll have to find that out for myself. I'll know as soon as I see Phil. There won't anything have to be said. I am afraid there has been too much talking already. You shouldn't have told him I cried," reproachfully.
"How could I help it? That is, how the deuce did you know I did?" floundered the trapped parent.
"Daddy! You know you played on Phil's sympathy every way you could. It was awful. At least it would have been awful if you had bought him with my silly tears after you failed to buy him with your silly money. But he didn't give in even for a moment—even when you told him I cried, did he?"
"Not even then. But that doesn't mean he doesn't care. He—"