“I’m not going to ask her grandmother a thing she doesn’t want me to be told. But I’ve been up against it pretty hard lately. I read some things in the New York papers about her father and his invention, and about her traveling round with him and helping him with his business.”
“In Germany they wur,” she put in, forgetting herself. “They’re havin’ big doin’s over th’ invention. What Joe’d do wi’out th’ lass I canna tell. She’s doin’ every bit o’ th’ managin’ an’ contrivin’ wi’ them furriners—but he’ll never know it.”
Her face flushed and she stopped herself sharply.
“I’m talkin’ about her to thee!” she said. “I would na ha’ believed it o’ mysen.”
He got up from his chair.
“I guess I oughtn’t to have come,” he said restlessly. “But you haven’t told me more than I got here and there in the papers. That was what startled me. It was like watching her. I could hear her talking and see the way she was doing things till it drove me half crazy. All of a sudden I just got wild and made up my mind I’d come here. I’ve wanted to do it many a time, but I’ve kept away.”
“Tha showed sense i’ doin’ that,” remarked Mrs. Hutchinson. “She’d not ha’ thowt well o’ thee if tha’d coom runnin’ to her grandmother every day or so. What she likes about thee is as she thinks tha’s got a strong backbone o’ thy own.
“Happen a look at a lass’s grandmother—when tha canna get at th’ lass hersen—is a bit o’ comfort,” she added. “But don’t tha go walkin’ by here to look in at th’ window too often. She would na think well o’ that either.”
“Say! There’s one thing I’m going to get off my chest before I go,” he announced, “just one thing. She can go where she likes and do what she likes, but I’m going to marry her when she’s done it—unless something knocks me on the head and finishes me. I’m going to marry her.”
“Tha art, art tha?” laconically.