“I should try to be dutiful,” she answered.
David Donner felt his old heart knocking on his ribs. It was a moment of much intensity for him.
“You have always been a dutiful daughter,” he said. “Have you ever had a thought, child, of the womanhood come upon you, and that mayhap you will one day become a wife now, and be as other women, a child no longer?”
“Any young woman would think on these matters by nature,” replied Garde, sagely. “But I have thought of nothing to occur soon, as to such a matter.”
“No, no, to be sure,” said David, nervously. “Yet I have desired to speak with you upon this subject, for an estimable young man has asked me to do this in his favor.”
Garde, who had believed his thought anywhere but here, looked up at him quickly. She saw the old man’s face drawn and eager, his eyes bright with the flame of incipient fanaticism. She was wholly at a loss to understand him.
“A young man?” she repeated. “Some one has spoken to you thus of me?” For a moment her thought ran wildly to Adam. Could it be possible that he had returned and spoken to Grandther Donner already?
Donner cleared his throat. He was pale, for he had not come to this moment without some violence to his own conscience.
“My child,” he said, a little huskily, “a great opportunity is offered to you to render a vast service to your country—to Massachusetts. Edward Randolph, who has long been against us, has come to me with an earnest desire to become one of us, working with us and not against us longer, and asking your hand in marriage, to cement the unity of his interests and hopes with ours. He appears to be an earnest, sincere man, at last heartily in sympathy with our struggles, and worthy of good citizenship among us. I have told him I would speak to you upon this matter, Garde, and take him your answer.” He paused and mopped his forehead with his handkerchief.
Garde could hardly believe her ears. She looked at her grandfather oddly. The color left her cheeks, for a moment, only to rush back in a flood at thought of Adam and the betrothal, to her so sacred. She had no thought whatsoever, during that interval, of the colony, or of patriotism, or of anything save what this proposition meant to Adam and to her. As for Randolph, she know him only by sight, and her instinct had prompted her to shun him, if not to loathe him. Her impulse was to start to her feet and cry out a shrill repudiation of the man’s offer. But the sight of Donner’s face awed her. She had never seen him look like this before. She remained seated. She resumed her knitting.