"
"Then I'll forgive ye!" he retorted, and his strong face lost all its
anger and found the wraith of a smile. "Dinnae be too hard on the lassie!
She's ane of the right sort."
He returned my salute, bowed courteously to Margaret, and strode on
"Good lad!" said Margaret, happily mimicking her father. "You shall have
some of the olives in a minute or two."
"Olives seem to me precisely the right thing for us," said I.
"And why, sir?"
It was very curious to me to see how, in her speech to me, she whipped
about from the familiar "Oliver" to the stately "Sir." There was always a
reason for it, and I would have given much to know it.
"Your olives come from Italy, and I have been thinking of your Italian
count."
"So have I," she said very soberly, and never said another word till we
were safe and quiet in her day-room at the "Bald-Faced Stag."
For over two hours I had Margaret to myself, and we were as happy and
companionable as we had been in Dick Doley's cottage. And at this I
marvelled. Our Kate was the only woman I had to judge by, and when our
Kate got into her very best Sunday gown she got into her tantrums along
with it, and poor Jack, what with awe of her finery and anxiety lest he
should anger the minx, commonly had a thorny time of it.
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