You could not have been
here so much without our seeing that. But let me ask you one question: Have
you ever thought that I wished you to marry her?"
"I have always beheld in you an unmasked enemy," he replied, smiling.
"Then I can go on," she said. "But I feel as though never in my life have I
done a thing that is as near being familiar and unwomanly. Nevertheless, for
your sake--for hers--for ours--it is my plain, hard duty to ask you whether
you are sure--even if you should have her consent--that my niece is the
woman you ought to marry." And she lifted to him her clear, calm eyes,
prematurely old in the experience of life.
"I am sure," he answered with the readiness of one who has foreseen the
question.
The negro boy approached with a bucket of cold crystal water, and he drank a
big gourd full of it gratefully.
"You can go and kindle the fire in the kitchen," she said to the negro. "It
is nearly time to be getting supper. I will be in by and by."
"You have been with her so much!" she continued to Gray after another
interval of embarrassment. "And you know, or you ought to know, her
disposition, her tastes, her ways and views of life.
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