—"That you have, or you never would have escaped, the determined way you did——"
—"And I know that, if these people, who are as kind as the people in a fairy-tale, do give me a chance to learn more, I shall take full advantage of it. Oh, David, by the time you come back, I shall be so changed! Twice as sensible and better instructed, and able to help you—to earn my own living, or help you earn yours."
"You are happy here?" he wistfully asked.
"Happy? I should think so. It is such a nice place, and they are so good. I don't mean only kind to me, but good to everyone. They do their duty all day long, and the priest and the doctor seem to come to them for everything they want."
"And you like the Squire?"
"Oh, very much. Not as much as I like Miss Rawson, of course. Miss Rawson is more—more—I don't think I can describe it. She has more mischief in her, somehow. He is fussy over little unimportant things, and he is rather prosy sometimes. But he is very kind, and he takes such an interest in me."
He sat gazing upon her as she spoke out her innocent thought. The idea of her being there, in his own home, until he came to summon her forth into the world with him, was so surpassingly sweet that it was with the utmost difficulty that he refrained from telling her how he had first seen the light within the walls that now sheltered her.
"It—it would disappoint you very much if they should decide not to keep you?"
She looked earnestly at him. "What would that mean? Would it mean that you would take me away at once?"
"Yes. They demand that I should make a clean breast of things to them. I can't do that. I will tell them all I can. But not everything. If they say, 'Very well, we can't keep her'—then I should have to fetch you, and we should have to fare into the wide world together. And I swear that I would take the same care of you that your own brother might."