"Now," said the farmer, "you're coming to business. Glad to hear ye talk in that sensible way, Mr. Fev'rel. You may guess I wants her bad enough. The house ain't itself now she's away, and I ain't myself. Well, sir! This ye can do. If you gives me your promise not to meddle with her at all--I can't mak' out how you come to be acquainted; not to try to get her to be meetin' you--and if you'd a seen her when she left, you would--when did ye meet?--last grass, wasn't it?--your word as a gentleman not to be writing letters, and spyin' after her--I'll have her back at once. Back she shall come!" "Give her up!" cried Richard. "Ay, that's it!" said the farmer. "Give her up." The young man checked the annihilation of time that was on his mouth. "You sent her away to protect her from me, then?" he said savagely. "That's not quite it, but that'll do," rejoined the farmer. "Do you think I shall harm her, sir?" "People seem to think she'll harm you, young gentleman," the farmer 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!"