My tutor smiled indulgently––but with a pitiful little trace of hurt remaining. ’Twas as though he must suffer the rebuff with no offended question. In the maid ’twas surely a wilful and bewildering thing to deny him. I could not make it out: but wished, in the breeze and sunlight of that day, that the wound had not been dealt. ’Twas an unkind thing in Judith, thinks I; ’twas a thing most cruel––thus to coquette with the friendship of John Cather.
“Ah, Judy,” I pleaded, “leave un have his way!”
She picked at the moss.
“Will ye not, maid?”
“I’m afraid!” she whispered in my ear.
“An’ you’d stop for that!” I chided, not knowing what she meant: as how should a lad?
It seemed she would.
“’Tis an unkind thing,” says I, “t’ treat John Cather so. He’ve been good,” says I, “t’ you, Judy.”
“Dannie!” she wailed.