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But, watching, he saw her summon up her strength and shoot down the glimmering ice-way like a swallow let loose from his hand. So swift was her flight that, all unknowing, she overtook and passed the travellers jogging parallel with her on the high road; and had reached Kelstein and was putting her two small charges to bed, when her father's knock sounded below stairs. Mr. and Mrs.
I have come to say good-bye." "Ah, in that case I will step out to the door and see you off; but I will not be button-holed by Dick Ellison." He rose and stood eyeing her, pinching his chin between thumb and forefinger. "You have something to say to me, I suspect." "I am going to Kelstein," Hetty began firmly. "I would like to obey you there, sir, as the others do at home.
Thinking to put spirit into her, Hetty became more explicit and proved that love might find out a way between Epworth and Kelstein nay, even spoke of her own clandestine meeting that very afternoon. Her cheeks glowed. Nor for a minute did she observe that Patty, listless at the beginning of the tale, was staring at her with round eyes. "You mean to tell me that you meet him!"
"Half a mile will give me lead enough to slip out of these things and collar him on the highway." "He is not worth it. Besides, he may not be going towards Kelstein: in this light we cannot see the road or what direction he takes. Let him be, dear," Hetty persuaded, as the old woman called out from her cabin that the kettle boiled. "Our time is too precious."
"I was expecting this," he said. "Indeed, I was riding to Kelstein to fetch you home." "But but why?" she stammered. "Why?" A short savage laugh broke from him, almost like a dog's bark; but he held his temper down. "Because I do not choose to have a decent household infected by a daughter of mine.
"There!" she exclaimed, straightening herself upon her knees as the blaze caught. "Is that a good omen for Kelstein?" Her eyes were on the sticks, and in their crackling she did not listen for his answer, but commanded him to take a pitcher of water and pour, while she mixed and kneaded the meal.
Dick Ellison suddenly, on the road to Kelstein. "To father?" Hetty came out of her day-dreams with a start. "Yes: you've been having a tiff this morning, anyone can see. Young man is poison to him, hey? Why don't you take a leaf out of my book? 'Paternal authority' and a successor of the apostles into the bargain that's his ground. Well, I don't allow him to take it.
The sound of the horse's hoofs died away down the road towards Kelstein. Had Hetty known, her father was the horseman, with Patty riding pillion behind him. Over the frozen floods came the note of a church clock, borne on the almost windless air. "Five o'clock?" Hetty sprang up. "Time to be going, and past." "You have not forgiven me," he murmured. "Indeed, yes."
"Oh, Johnny I forgot the tinder-box!" she cried. He dropped his burdens and produced it triumphantly from his tail pocket. "I thought of that!" "But you must not!" as he dropped on his knees and began to unbind and break up the sticks. "This is my business. I am going into service, in ten days at Kelstein: and you must watch and tell me what I do amiss."
If the worst come to the worst, it shall not be at Kelstein that I choose it, but here among you all. I think you will gain little by sending me to Kelstein, mother: but you need not be afraid for me there." "You speak in enigmas." "And my tone, you would say, is something too theatrical for your taste?
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