rmer said
with some irony.

"Harm me--she? What people?"

"People pretty intimate with you, sir."

"What people? Who spoke of us?" Richard began to scent a plot, and would
not be balked.

"Well, sir, look here," said the farmer. "It ain't no secret, and if
it be, I don't see why I'm to keep it. It appears your education's
peculiar!" The farmer drawled out the word as if he were describing the
figure of a snake. "You ain't to be as other young gentlemen. All the
better! You're a fine bold young gentleman, and your father's a right to
be proud of ye. Well, sir--I'm sure I thank him for't he comes to hear
of you and Luce, and of course he don't want nothin' o' that--more do
I. I meets him there! What's more I won't have nothin' of it. She be my
gal. She were left to my protection. And she's a lady, sir. Let me tell
ye, ye won't find many on 'em so well looked to as she be--my Luce!
Well, Mr. Fev'rel, it's you, or it's her--one of ye must be out o' the
way. So we're told. And Luce--I do believe she's just as anxious about
yer education as yer father she says she'll go, and wouldn't write,
and'd break it off for the sake o' your education. And she've kep' her
word, haven't she?--She's a true'n. What she says she'll do!--True blue
she be, my Luce! So now, sir, you do the same, and I'll thank ye."

Any one who has tossed a sheet of paper into the fire, and seen it
gradually brown with heat, and strike to flame, may conceive the mind of
the lover as he listened to this speech.

His anger did not evaporate in words, but condensed and sank deep. "Mr.
Blaize," he said, "this is very kind of the people you allude to, but
I am of an age now to think and act for myself--I love her, sir!" His
whole countenance changed, and the muscles of his face quivered.

"Well!" said the farmer, appeasingly, "we all do at your age--somebody
or other. It's natural!"

"I love her!" the young man thundered afresh, too much possessed by his
passion to have a sense of shame in the confession. "Farmer!" his voice
fell to supplication, "will you bring her back?"

Farmer Blaize made a queer face. He asked--what for? and where was the
promise required?--But was not the lover's argument conclusive? He
said he loved her! and he could not see why her uncle should not in
consequence immediately send for her, that they might be together. All
very well, quoth the farmer, but what's to come of it?--What was to come
of it? Why, love, and more love! And a