“Ah, you are accustomed to have your own way. That any one might know by looking at you. But I have got a quantity of work to do. You can see that by my fingers.”
The girl made a courtesy, and took the pitcher from him, because he was knocking it against his legs; but he could not be angry when he looked into her eyes, though the habit of his temper made him try to fume.
“Do you know what I think?” she said, fixing bright hazel eyes upon him; “I think that you are very passionate sometimes.”
“Well, if I am, it is my own business. Who told you anything about it? Whoever it was shall pay out for it.”
“Nobody told me, Sir. You must remember that I never even heard of your name before.”
“Oh, come, I can't quite take down that. Everybody knows me for fifty miles or more; and I don't care what they think of me.”
“You may please yourself about believing me,” she answered, without concern about it. “No one who knows me doubts my word, though I am not known for even five miles away.”
“What an extraordinary girl you are! You say things on purpose to provoke me. Nobody ever does that; they are only too glad to keep me in a good temper.”
“If you are like that, Sir, I had better run away. My father will be home in about an hour, and he might think that you had no business here.”
“I! No business upon my own land! This place must be bewitched, I think. There is a witch upon the moors, I know, who can take almost any shape; but—but they say she is three hundred years of age, or more.”