"I'm saying nothing against that. Have I ever tried to stop your freedom? I know my Lily, and I dinna fear. But hear what I was going to tell you. The gentlefolk have winning ways. They take their hats off to you, and they speak soft to you, and they make you think you're a queen; but, Lily, that a' comes to an end, and how are you to bide a common man, and a rough courting, and all our country ways after that?"
"I want no man nor courting either—if you would only let me be."
"But I cannot let you be. Who have I but you, Lily. There's Dick, a good lad, more able to look after me than I'm able to look after him; and Abel," said Elizabeth, lingering on the name, "Abel—he's a grand gentleman, and wants nothing of his mother. But, Lily, a woman's glory is her daughter. My lass, I've none but you. It's you that's my crown and my credit. And will you no' be a honour to me, Lily? Will you let men and lads, even if they be gentlemen, make free with your bonnie name?"
"Who's done that? There's none I know that would do that," cried Lily, sharply, with a movement of anger and pain; and then she fell a-crying and betrayed the existence of something more than the mere gazing and admiration Miss Prentice was aware of. Elizabeth discovered with dismay that the young squire had gone further than vague adoration of her child's lovely looks, and that there had even been talk of marriage between them. "He said it," Lily avowed—"not me. I did not promise, and I would not promise. I thought you would say—what you've been saying, mother; and me—do I want that? I was only joking; I was never thinking. He said it; but I said nothing—neither one thing nor another. I just laughed."
"But you'll have to give an answer; you'll have to say one thing or another, Lily." Elizabeth was much alarmed, not believing in the young squire; but she was somewhat impressed and solemnised too, for it was an honour. Nobody could say but it was that.
"Not me!" said Lily, with a toss of her head.
And there was a pause, for so serious a position of affairs had not been contemplated, and Elizabeth felt the necessity of thinking it over before she could settle what to do.
"It was him then that passed the window, riding so slow, on a big black horse?"
"That passed the window? There's always some one passing the window," said Lily, in a careless tone.
"And turning back to pass again, and staring in?"