“Tell them just as you feel, Brightie,” he replied, yet there was an anxious expression in his eye as he waited for her answer.
“Well, then, I ain’t sorry one mite,” she said, flushing angrily, “and I think you are a real wicked man to try and part us, for Squire Moulton said ‘what God hath joined together let no man put to thunder.’ Was not that it, Robbie?” she asked, half doubtfully, thinking that it didn’t sound just right.
The lawyer shouted, while even her mother and Mr. Ellerton could not repress a smile at this new version of the Scriptural command.
“No, ‘put asunder,’ darling,” replied the boy lover, a glad look in his eye, while he gathered her closer in his arms.
“Come here, Dora,” said Mrs. Dupont, who had noticed the act, and feared it might influence her replies.
She obeyed, though somewhat unwillingly.
Lawyer Leonard, controlling his mirth, turned to the child and said:
“My dear little girl, don’t you see how unhappy you are making your mother? Only see how pale and sad she looks at what you have done. If you will only say you are sorry she will be happy again.”
Dora looked up in her mother’s face with a troubled expression.
“Mamma,” she asked, “are you unhappy?”