"Thank you, Guardy; couldn't you let me have part of it now?"
"Silence, I tell you! Gipsy, this is what I intended doing; but, child, I have become involved in debt. Mount Sunset will be taken from me, and you, and Louis, and the rest of us will be beggars."
Up flew Gipsy's eyebrows, open flew her eyes, and down dropped her chin, in unfeigned amazement.
"Yes," continued the squire, "you may stare, but it's true. And now, Gipsy, since you told me you were not ungrateful—now is the time to prove it, by saving me and all your friends from ruin."
"I save you from ruin?" said Gipsy, staring with all her eyes, and wondering if "Guardy" was wandering in his mind.
"Yes, you. As I told you, I am involved in debt, which it is utterly impossible for me to pay. Now, Doctor Wiseman, who has fallen in love with my fairy, has offered to pay my debts if you will marry him. Don't laugh, don't, as I see you are going to do—this is no time for laughter, Gipsy."
"Oh, but Guardy, that's too funny! The idea of me, a little girl of seventeen, marrying a man of sixty—'specially such a man as Spider Wiseman! Oh, Guardy, it's the best joke of the season!" cried Gipsy, bursting into another immoderate fit of laughter.
"Ungrateful, hard-hearted girl!" said the squire, with tears actually in his stormy old eyes; "this is your return for all I have done for you! You, the only living being who can save those who have been your best friends from being turned out of the old homestead, instead of rejoicing in being able to do it, you only laugh at him in scorn, you—" the squire broke down fairly here.
Never had the elf seen the usually violent old man so moved. A pang shot through her heart for her levity; and the next moment her arms were round his neck, and her white handkerchief wiping away the tears of which he was ashamed.
"Dear—dear Guardy, I'm so sorry! I never thought you felt so bad about it. I'll do anything in the world to help you; I'm not ungrateful. What do you want me to do, Guardy?"