"Yes, sir!" replied Mrs. Gower, slightly appalled by his terrible look, but never flinching in her determination.
"You—you—you—abominable—female, you!" stammered the squire, unable to speak calmly, from rage. Then he added: "Well, well! I won't get excited—no, ma'am. You can keep the brat, ma'am! But mind you, if it ever comes across me, I'll wring its neck for it as I would a chicken's!"
"Then I may keep the little darling?" said good Mrs. Gower, gratefully. "I am sure I am much obliged, and——"
"There! there! there! Hold your tongue, ma'am! Don't let me hear another word about it—the pest! the plague! Be off with you now, and send up dinner. Let the turkey be overdone, or the pudding burned, at your peril! 'Better a stalled ox with quietness, than a dry morsel,' as Solomon says. Hurry up there, and ring for Lizzie!"
Mrs. Gower hastened from the room, chuckling at having got over the difficulty so easily. And from that day forth, little Aurora, as her kind benefactress called her, was domesticated at Mount Sunset Hall.
CHAPTER VI.
LIZZIE'S LOVER.
"Fond girl! no saint nor angel he
Who wooes thy young simplicity;
But one of earth's impassioned sons,
As warm in love, as fierce in ire,
As the best heart whose current runs
Full of the day-god's living fire."