"Don't say it even in fun. You don't know what it means to me. I'm up eighteen year old now--a man. But I hate Mr. Peter, too, for that matter." "Because I do?" "Yes, an' for another reason; because granny likes him. He gived her money once. She said afterwards that there was that in his face pleased her fancy, for he'd got a depth in it that would make rocks and water do his will." "She's quite wrong there. He's a most superficial man and amiable to weakness. He is always making feeble jests and quoting the poets. He is a thing of shreds and patches. He put your grandmother into an old verse once. I laughed, though I hate him. He said:-- "'Through regions by wild men and cannibals haunted, Old Dame Lovey Lee goes alone and undaunted; But, bless you, the risk's not so great as it's reckoned; She's too plain for the first and too tough for the second!'" "He may laugh at her," replied John Lee. "But she don't laugh at him. When he'd gone that day, she told me that he was the first man ever she clapped eyes on as could be her master if he liked; and I shivered to hear her say it." "He's welcome to be her master; he never shall be mine," said Grace resolutely; and as she spoke, her father suddenly appeared before them. CHAPTER XI MALHERB'S IDEA John Lee touched his hat, while Grace rose and welcomed her father, who, still dominated by his Idea, proved in a very amiable mood. "You grow fast--you'll be as tall as your grandmother at this rate. Not that you are like her," he said to the lad. John smiled and touched his hat again. Malherb scanned the finely built youngster, and thought of his dead son. There was a resemblance, as Grace recently remarked to John himself, and the father, who had a picture of Noel Malherb painted lifelike upon memory, now perceived this similitude. For a moment he stared in silence, then turned to Grace. "I seek your mother. Has she gone to visit Lady Tyrwhitt?" "Yes, she is at Tor Royal, father. Indeed, she should be on her way home again by this time." "Then we'll walk along to meet her. And you, John Lee, tell that old witch up there I'm not asleep. I shall have my amphora yet; and the reckoning, when it does come, will mean a halter for her." "Your servant, sir; an' I'll be sure to speak the message." As they proceeded together, Grace put a petition to her father, and he was about to decline it, but bethought him. The Idea entirely turned upon Grace herself, and he had no desire to cross her will in minor matters, though she still differed from him upon the great question of her own future. "Father," she said, "I ought to have a groom." "Why, that boy we have left is as good as a groom to you."