nor walking round the bush. It
is just this. If there is a family on this earth that I have been proud
to have to do with, it is that of the Dales. If there were children that
I loved next to my own, it was the Dales. Why, I was brought up, so to
speak, to look on them as my liege lords. My mother had the old feudal
principles in her, and she never went with the times. She never held that
we were as good as our betters. We were good enough, straight enough,
honest enough, but we hadn't the blue blood of the Dales in us. That is
how I was brought up. Well, you, sir, were married, and came to live here
with your good lady. It was the will of the Almighty that she should be
taken, and the children were left motherless; and my little Nancy and I,
we used to watch to do them a kindness. They were right pleased to come
over and see us, and to ride barebacked on my two Forest ponies, and have
their fun whenever they could get as far away as The Hollies. And Nancy
was free to come to your house, and much she enjoyed it."

"Well, Robert, very natural--very natural indeed," said Mr. Dale.

"So I took it; so I took it."

Here the farmer flashed an angry eye in the direction of Miss Tredgold.

"But never mind," he continued. "I did not presume--far from that--far
indeed from that. It pleased the Almighty to give you ten daughters, Mr.
Dale, and to give me but one. And I love my one as much, perhaps, as you
love the whole of your ten. But be that as it may, when Nancy went to The
Dales to have her fun and her larks and her gay time, I was as pleased as
Punch. And then this good lady came, and she said to herself, 'Who is
Nancy King?' and the young ladies told her the plain truth; and then this
good lady did not take the trouble to inquire. A farmer's daughter was
only a farmer's daughter to her. Oh, I am not blaming her; but a little
thought, a little less prejudice, would have prevented a lot of mischief.
Anyhow, the good aunt gave the word--my girl and the young ladies were to
have nothing to do with each other in the future. Mark you that, sir,
when they were brought up, so to speak, together--always tumbling about
in the same hay-field, and riding the same ponies, and playing the same
games. It was all to end because of madam. Now, Mr. Dale, I was real mad
when Nancy came and told me what had happened. My feelings were hot and
strong and bitter, and I thought the treatment dealt out to my child and
me none too just. So, sir, w