“Oh, dadda,” protested Janice, pleadingly, “’t was truly no insult he intended, but the—the highest—he spoke as if—as if—There was a tender respect in his every word and action, as if I might have been a queen. And I could not—Oh, mommy, please, please, tell it for me!”
“’T is best thou shouldst know at once, Lambert, that Janice favours his wooing.”
“What!” roared the squire, looking incredulously from mother to daughter, and then, as the latter nodded her head, he cried, “I’ll not believe it of ye, Jan, however ye may wag your pate. Wed a bondman! Have ye forgot your old pledge to me? Where ’s your pride, child, that ye should even let the thought occur to ye?”
“But he is well born, dadda, far better than we ourselves, for he told me once that his great-grandfather was King of England,” cried the girl, desperately.
“And ye believed the tale?”
“He would not lie to me, dadda, I am sure."
“Why think ye that?”
“Oh—he never—loving me, he never—can’t you understand? He ’d not deceive me, dadda.”
“Ye ’re the very one he would, ye mean, and small wonder he takes advantage of ye if ye talk as foolishly to him as to me. Have done with all thought of the fellow and of his clankers concerning his birth. Whate’er he was, he is to-day a run-away bondservant and—”
“But, dadda, he is now a lieutenant-colonel and—”