"I should tie it up--tightly," replied Gil, drily. "Your guest there will make a month's illness of it for the sake of being petted by the women and nursed." "That's a pretty jealous kind of remark, Captain Gil," said the founder sharply. "I noticed how you took me up short when I bade Mace stop in the room with the poor young man. Come down here, I want to talk to you. We may as well say it now as at any other time. Let's walk down to the empty furnace. No one will heed us there." "With all my heart," said Gil, and, with a cloud gathering on his brow, he walked after the founder, along by the side of the rushing water, past the mill-wheel, and down to a good-sized stone building, beside which was a great pile of charcoal. "Now, Gil Carr," said the founder, seating himself on the ledge of an open window, "I'm not going to quarrel." "That you are not," said the other, smiling frankly; "and if you did you are not going to fight, for I won't draw. One wounded man is enough for one day." "Tut--tut--yes," cried the founder. "But now look here, Captain Gil--" "Suppose we drop the captain, and let it be plain Gil again, as it has been these many years. Master Cobbe, we are very old friends." "Yes, yes, of course, Gil, so we are," said the founder, looking annoyed and puzzled. "But now, look here, tell me why did you interfere when I was going to tell my child to sit in the room with that injured gentleman. Come now, be frank." "I will," said Gil, quietly. "It was because I did not think it seemly for her to stay and tend a man whose eyes had just openly bespoken admiration, and I thought that Janet would do as well." "Like your insolence," cried the choleric old man. "Gently, Master Cobbe," said the other smiling; "too much powder again." "Confound it, yes," he cried, calming down, but only to grow wroth the next moment, as he saw the smile upon his companion's face. "You are laughing at me, Gil; and now, hark ye here, I think it is quite time we came to a proper understanding." "About Mace?" said Gil, quietly. "Yes, about my child," said the founder. "I think so, too," said Gil, calmly, but with the bronze hue of his cheek becoming a little more deeply tinted. "Oh! you do," said the founder, with a peculiar hesitancy, now it had come to the point, and an aspect of being slightly in awe of the other and his calm, firm way--the peculiar quiet assertion of one born to and accustomed to command. "I do," said Gil, gazing him full in the eyes; "and I am glad that you have opened a subject I wanted to discuss." "Then it is soon done," said the founder; "and look here, Gil, my dear lad, after the talk is over, we go back to our old positions as good friends, and it is to be as if we had never spoken." "Have no fear," said Gil, smiling; "as I told you, we shall not quarrel." "Well, then, look here," said the founder, making a plunge at once into the subject. "Gil Carr, you are growing too intimate with my child."