what else? Instid of throublin' yourself and frettin'
yourself till your heart is scalded out of you, why don't you marry her?
That's what _I've_ been askin' meself ever since the poor masther died.
It's out now, if I'm to be killed for it!"

She eyed him almost defiantly.

But Milbanke stood stammering and confused, his gaze fixed nervously on
the ground, an unaccustomed flush on his worn cheeks.

"But--but, Hannah, I--I am an old man!"

His tone was deprecating and meant to be ironic; but unconsciously it
had an undernote of question; unconsciously, as he raised his eyes to
his mentor's face, he straightened the shoulders that age and study had
combined to bend.

"I am an old man!" he said again. "Why--why, I am five years older than
her father----"

Hannah continued to search his face.

"An' sure what harm is that?" she said. "Wasn't me own poor man as ould
as me grandfather?--an' no woman ever buried a finer husband--God rest
him!"

Milbanke's lack of humorous imagination stood him in good stead.

"But she's a child," he stammered--"a child----"

For answer, Hannah leant out of the window until her face was close to
his.

"Listen here to me!" she said softly. "Child or no child, you thought
about marryin' her before ever I said it. But you'd never riz the
courage to do it. You're not like the Asshlins, that would tear down
the walls of hell if they wanted to be gettin' at the divil; you'd like
somebody to take him be the hand and draw him out nice and aisy for
you----

"There she is up in that lonesome house, frettin' her heart an' cryin'
her eyes out. Why can't you go up an' take her, before somebody else
does?"

As she came to the last words her rough voice dropped. Her loyalty to
her dead master, her anxiety to see his child in a place of safety
poured from her in crude eloquence. To her primitive mind Milbanke
appeared as the ideal husband--a man of dependable years, of wealth, of
good social position; and all her affections, all her energies yearned
to make the marriage. She could not have framed the fear that possessed
her; but her instinct, her acute native intuition warned her
unanswerably that the daughter of Denis Asshlin would need protection,
and would need it before long. With an impulsive gesture she stretched
out her hand, and, touching Milbanke's shoulder, pushed him gently
forward into the yard.

"Go on, sir!" she urged softly. "Go on up an' take her, before somebody
else does!"