The little girl had heard that some well-do-to people had offered the seine-maker a home for life, but in preference he had gone to live with his daughter-in-law, who made her home here in the Ashdales, so as to help her in any way that he could; she had many children, and her husband, who had deserted her, was now supposed to be dead.
"To-day there was fish on the hooks!" shouted the little girl from the stile.
"You don't tell me!" said the seine-maker. "But that was well."
"I'll gladly give you all the fish I catch," she told him, "if I'm only allowed to do the fishing myself." So saying, she went up to the seine-maker and emptied the contents of her basket on the ground, expecting of course that he would be pleased and would praise her, just as her father—who was always pleased with everything she said or did—had always done. But the seine maker took this attention with his usual calm indifference.
"You keep what's yours," he said. "We're so used to going hungry here that we can get on without your few little fishes."
There was something out of the common about this poor old man and
Glory Goldie was anxious to win his approval.
"You may take the fish of and stick the worms on the hooks, if you like," said she, "and you can have all the tackle and everything."
"Thanks," returned the old man. "But I'll not deprive you of your pleasure."
Glory Goldie was determined not to go until she had thought out a way of satisfying him.
"Would you like me to come and call for you every morning," she asked him, "so that we could draw up the lines together and divide the catch—you to get half, and I half?"