“No, Daniel, I am not pleased at all. I am quite surprised that you should work so late. It scarcely seems respectable.” At this the young man was so much amazed that he could only stare while she walked off, until the clear duty of righting himself in her good opinion struck him. Then he threw on his coat and ran after her. “If you please, Miss Dolly--will you please, Miss Dolly?” he called, as she made off for the stepping-stones; but she did not turn round, though her name was “Miss Dolly” all over Springhaven, and she liked it. “You are bound to stop, miss,” he said, sternly; and she stopped, and cried, “What do you mean by such words to me?” “Not any sort of harm, miss,” he answered, humbly, inasmuch as she had obeyed him; “and I ask your pardon for speaking so. But if you think twice you are bound to explain what you said concerning me, now just.” “Oh, about your working so late, you mean. I offered good advice to you. I think it is wrong that you should go on, when everybody else has left off long ago. But perhaps your father makes you.” “Father is a just man,” said young Tugwell, drawing up his own integrity; “now and then he may take a crooked twist, or such like; but he never goeth out of fair play to his knowledge. He hath a-been hard upon me this day; but the main of it was to check mother of her ways. You understand, miss, how the women-folk go on in a house, till the other women hear of it. And then out-of-doors they are the same as lambs.” “It is most ungrateful and traitorous of you to your own mother to talk so. Your mother spoils you, and this is all the thanks she gets! Wait till you have a wife of your own, Master Daniel!” “Wait till I am dead then I may, Miss Dolly,” he answered, with a depth of voice which frightened her for a moment; and then he smiled and said, “I beg your pardon,” as gracefully as any gentleman could say it; “but let me see you safe to your own gate; there are very rough people about here now, and the times are not quite as they used to be, when we were a-fighting daily.” He followed her at a respectful distance, and then ran forward and opened the white gate. “Good-night, Daniel,” the young lady said, as he lifted his working cap to her, showing his bright curls against the darkening sea; “I am very much obliged to you, and I do hope I have not said anything to vex you. I have never forgotten all you did for me, and you must not mind the way I have of saying things.” “What a shame it does appear--what a fearful shame it is,” she whispered to herself as she hurried through the trees--“that he should be nothing but a fisherman! He is a gentleman in everything but birth and education; and so strong, and so brave, and so good-looking!” CHAPTER XI NO PROMOTION “Do it again now, Captain Scuddy; do it again; you know you must.” “You touched the rim with your shoe, last time. You are bound to do it clean, once more.” “No, he didn't. You are a liar; it was only the ribbon of his shoe.”