She started up before him, her face very much increased in color, and she folded her arms above her kerchief. "Father," she said, "if thee thinks I am old enough to marry, I think I am old enough to form an opinion of my own. Had I been in Samuel Biddle's place, and an offer of change of residence had been proffered to me, I should first have gone to the woman who was to be my wife and told her the bearings of the case, and let her tell her father: I should never have gone to her father first."
She would have gone from the room, but her father called her back and bade her resume her sewing; which she did, though I saw her neckerchief rise and fall as though her heart were unusually perturbed beneath it.
"Is thee grown perverse?" said her father angrily.
"Nay," she answered. "I am my father's daughter: my will is my own."
"This to me?" he said.
"Friend Hicks," said I, in much pain, "I pray thee let me go: I have unwittingly caused this. It has been because I set my mind so wilfully upon thy daughter that I forgot all else but her, and had not the courage to say to her what I did to thee."
He spoke long and earnestly to me then, and when we looked around Barbara had quietly quitted the room.
But as I went sore of spirit down the lane on my way home she suddenly faced me. There were marks upon her face as of the stains of drops of water, and her eyes, I perceived, were heavy and swollen. "Will thee forgive me, Samuel Biddle?" said she.
"I should ask that of thee," I replied.
"Thee knows I was headstrong," she said, taking my sleeve in her hand.