"There appears to be an amazing diffusion of ignorance here!"
Margaret bit her lip, and kept still. Her father was taking it a great deal more seriously than she had expected. A long, awkward silence ensued. Richard broke it at last by remarking uneasily, "Nothing has been or was to be concealed from you. Before going to sleep to-night, Margaret would have told you all I've said to her."
"You should have consulted with me before saying anything."
"I intended to do so, but my words got away from me. I hope you will overlook it, sir, and not oppose my loving Margaret, though I see as plainly as you do that I am not worthy of her."
"I have not said that. I base my disapproval on entirely different ground. Margaret is too young. A girl of seventeen or eighteen"--
"Nineteen," said Margaret, parenthetically.
"Of nineteen, then,--has no business to bother her head with such matters. Only yesterday she was a child!"
Richard glanced across at Margaret, and endeavored to recall her as she impressed him that first afternoon, when she knocked defiantly at the workshop door to inquire if he wanted any pans and pails; but he was totally unable to reconstruct that crude little figure with the glossy black head, all eyes and beak, like a young hawk's.
"My objection is impersonal," continued Mr. Slocum. "I object to the idea. I wish this had not happened. I might not have disliked it--years hence; I don't say; but I dislike it now."
Richard's face brightened. "It will be years hence in a few years!"