"Ay, ay. Do what ye will with the lasses. If they'd 'a been lads, I might ha' had sommat to say."
He lowered his great bulk slowly into the third garden chair. The little girls came running across the daisied lawn, Connie dancing ahead, Muriel following more sedately. Though she was fourteen, Muriel still looked a child in her short holland dress and round straw hat.
"Father, Father," shrilled Connie. "When did you come home? Have you been to Kingsport? How did the new bay mare go?"
They were singularly alike, Arthur Hammond and his younger daughter. He smiled down at her with fond assurance.
"She went like old Miss Deale goes when she sees the curate coming round t' corner."
"What do you mean, father? How does she go?"
"Arthur, I wish that you wouldn't say such things before the children," reproved his wife's sweet voice.
He laughed enormously, putting his hand out and drawing Connie closer to him, and thinking what a jolly thing it was to be sitting in his pleasant garden with the day's work done, and an evening of uninterrupted domesticity before him.
"Ay, Connie," he asked, "how would you like to go to school, eh? At Hardrascliffe with old Mrs. Hancock, who'd beat you like anything if you're a bad girl?"
"Oh, Father!" Connie glowed rapturously, understanding exactly how far his threats were serious.