"From whom, my little one?" And his
hand caressed her shoulder.
"From my mother," Dolly answered, blushing still deeper crimson.
"From the mother who put this injustice upon me. From the mother
who, by her own confession, might have given me an honorable
birthright, like any one else's, and who cruelly refused to."
The old man eyed her with a searching glance.
"Then she hasn't brought you up in her own wild ideas?" he said.
"She hasn't dinged them into you!"
"She has tried to," Dolly answered. "But I will have nothing to do
with them. I hate her ideas, and her friends, and her faction."
Sir Anthony drew her forward and gave her a sudden kiss. Her
spirit pleased him.
"That's well, my child," he answered. "That's well--for a
beginning."
Then Dolly, emboldened by his kindness,--for in a moment, somehow,
she had taken her grandfather's heart by assault,--began to tell
him how it had all come about; how she had received an offer from a
most excellent young man at Combe Mary in Dorsetshire,--very well
connected, the squire of his parish; how she had accepted him with
joy; how she loved him dearly; how this shadow intervened; how
thereupon, for the first time, she had asked for and learned the
horrid truth about her parentage; how she was stunned and appalled
by it; how she could never again live under one roof with such a
woman; and how she came to him for advice, for encouragement, for
assistance.
Pages:
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236