"Nay, Master Rumbold," said Lee, "our people desired to do Ruth an honour; and I think you should be proud."
"I should be prouder," returned Rumbold, turning irefully on the young man, "to see her in her winding-sheet, a pale white—Marry! and let me look at your face now, Mistress," he went on, snatching her roughly by the chin. "Ha! red as your gaudy flowers there! So! I guessed as much. And there has been romping, has there?"
"Nay, father; just a little turn or two at Hoodman Blind, and Hunt the Slipper."
"What next?" said Rumbold groaningly, and turning up his eye.
"And—and a measure," faltered the truthful Ruth.
"Dancing!" and now the stern eye glared.
"Only round—round the Maypole, father."
Rumbold's lips parted with a jerk, as if he was about to break into still sharper rebuke; but as his eye caught the expression of Lawrence's face he contented himself with reiterating his dismissal.
"Good night, father," said Ruth, lifting her face to his, but Rumbold did not, or affected not to see. He was standing absorbed in watching the approach of a big black coal-laden barge which now hove lumbering in sight through the middle span of the bridge.
The queen's crown goes down.