an others.
Some were extremely nice."

"Ah." Seth turned his earnest eyes on the girl's face. He lost the
significance of the mischievous down-turning of the corners of her mouth.
"I guess them gilt-edge folk are a dandy lot. Y' see them 'lords' an'
such, they've got to be pretty nigh the mark."

"Why, yes, I suppose they have."

There was another brief pause while the man's eyes glanced keenly about.

"Maybe you mixed a deal with them sort o' folk," he went on presently.

"Oh, yes." The violet eyes were again alight.

"Pretty tidy sort o' fellers, eh?"

"Rather. I liked one or two very much--very much indeed. There was
Bob--Bob Vinceps, you know--he was a splendid fellow. He was awfully nice
to me. Took auntie and me everywhere. I wonder how he's getting on. I must
see if there's a letter from him at Beacon. He asked me if he might write.
And wasn't it nice of him, Seth? He came all the way from London to
Liverpool to see me, I mean us, off. It's a long way--a dreadful long
way."

"Ah, mebbe when I go into Beacon Crossing I'll fetch that letter out for
you, Rosie."

But Seth's simple-heartedness--Rosebud called it "stupidity,"--was too
much. The girl's smile vanished in a second and she answered sharply.

"Thanks, I'll get my own letters." Then she went on demurely. "You see if
there happened to be a letter from Bob I shouldn't like auntie to see it.
She is very--very--well, she mightn't like it."

"How?"

Seth looked squarely into the face beside him.

"She thinks--well, you see, she says I'm very young, and--and----"

"Ah, I tho't mebbe ther's suthin' agin him. You see, Rosie, ther' mustn't
be anythin' agin the man you marry. He's got to be a jo-dandy clear thro'.
I----"

"But I'm not going to marry Lord Vinceps, you silly, at least--I don't
think so. Besides," as an afterthought, "it's nothing to you who I
marry."

"Wal, no. Mebbe that's so, only ef you'd get hitched, as the sayin' is, to
some mule-headed son of a gun that wa'n't squar' by you, I'd git around
an' drop him in his tracks, ef I had to cross the water to do it."

Rosebud listened with a queer stirring at her heart, yet she could not
repress the impatience she felt at the calm matter-of-fact manner in which
the threat was made. The one redeeming point about it was that she knew
one of Seth's quiet assurances to be far more certain, far more deadly,
than anybody's else wildest spoken threats. However, she laughed as she
answered him.