“I’m sorry you were disappointed in me—about Frank, you know. I’ve heard all about it—how you educated him for a profession, thinking—thinking to provide a nice husband for me. It was so kind in you. Were you very angry with me? I hope you can forgive me,” anxiously.
He bit his lip with vexation. So his mother had betrayed him.
“You don’t say a word, Mr. de Vere. I suppose you are vexed still. Perhaps you did not want me here, breaking up the peace and quiet you had with your mother before I came. This is what I wanted to say. It isn’t likely I will ever marry anybody, so you can’t get rid of me that way. But, please, can’t I go away and support myself? I could teach music. I have a talent for that, and for millinery, too. I—would—rather go, please, because I’m afraid I’m in your way here.”
The big blue eyes shone pathetically through starting tears.
Norman held out his hand to her as if she had been a child, and said, huskily:
“Sweetheart!”
She arose and went to him with the docility of a child, and put her dimpled white hand in his. When he pressed it tightly he felt how she was trembling.
“Dear Little Sweetheart, I have wounded you,” he murmured, tenderly. “Forgive me, child. That was a foolish fancy of mine to provide for your future. But it was different then. I did not know it would ever be so that you could come back to live at Verelands. I am glad you did not marry Frank Hinton. I hope you will never marry any one. I want you to stay always at Verelands to make the sunshine brighter and the flowers sweeter, as they have been ever since you came.”
His arm slipped around the slender, throbbing waist and pressed it gently.
“Never think yourself unwelcome again,” he whispered. “You must never be afraid of me again. Stay at Verelands and be my mother’s daughter, Sweetheart, and my own dear little sister.”