"Yes, I know, dear, but," bending her face while she removed one of her buckskin gauntlets from her hand, "I mean about me. You two were-discussing me, I know."
She turned her keen gray eyes upon her relative as she finished speaking. The old man turned away. He felt that those eyes were reading his very soul. They made him uncomfortable.
"Oh, he said I ought not to let you associate with certain people."
"Why?" The sharp question came with the directness of a pistol-shot.
"Well, he seemed to think that you might think of marrying."
"Ah, and—"
"He seemed to fancy that you, being impetuous, might make a mistake and fall—"
"In love with the wrong man. Yes, I understand; and from his point of view, if ever I do marry it will undoubtedly be the wrong man."
And the girl finished up with a mirthless laugh.
They stood for some moments in silence. They were both thinking. The noise from the corrals behind the house reached them. The steady drip, drip of the water from the melting snow upon the roof of the house sounded loudly as it fell on the sodden ground beneath.