ok his seat at the table,
filled his mouth with sausage, and said: "You're goin' where I tell
you."

"I'm goin' to London."

Tom Gaunt stayed the morsel in one cheek and fixed her with his little,
wild boar's eye.

"Ye're goin' to catch the stick," he said. "Look here, my girl, Tom
Gaunt's been put about enough along of you already. Don't you make no
mistake."

"I'm goin' to London," repeated the rogue-girl stolidly. "You can get
Alice to come over."

"Oh! Can I? Ye're not goin' till I tell you. Don't you think it!"

"I'm goin'. I saw Mr. Derek this mornin'. They'll get me a place there."

Tom Gaunt remained with his fork as it were transfixed. The effort of
devising contradiction to the chief supporters of his own rebellion was
for the moment too much for him. He resumed mastication.

"You'll go where I want you to go; and don't you think you can tell me
where that is."

In the silence that ensued the only sound was that of old Gaunt supping
at his crusty-broth. Then the rogue-girl went to the window and, taking
the little cat on her breast, sat looking out into the rain. Having
finished his broth, old Gaunt got up, and, behind his son's back, he
looked at his granddaughter and thought:

'Goin' to London! 'Twud be best for us all. WE shudn' need to be movin',
then. Goin' to London!' But he felt desolate.

CHAPTER XIV

When Spring and first love meet in a girl's heart, then the birds sing.

The songs that blackbirds and dusty-coated thrushes flung through
Nedda's window when she awoke in Hampstead those May mornings seemed to
have been sung by herself all night. Whether the sun were flashing on
the leaves, or rain-drops sieving through on a sou'west wind, the same
warmth glowed up in her the moment her eyes opened. Whether the lawn
below were a field of bright dew, or dry and darkish in a shiver of east
wind, her eyes never grew dim all day; and her blood felt as light as
ostrich feathers.

Stormed by an attack of his cacoethes scribendi, after those few blank
days at Becket, Felix saw nothing amiss with his young daughter. The
great observer was not observant of things that other people observed.
Neither he nor Flora, occupied with matters of more spiritual
importance, could tell, offhand, for example, on which hand a
wedding-ring was worn. They had talked enough of Becket and the Tods to
produce the impression on Flora's mind that one day or another two young
people would arrive in her house on