Mr. Sharpe smiled darkly. Richelieu's precocious gallantry evidently was
not considered as gratuitous as his experimental metallurgy. But as his
eyes followed his daughter's wholesome, Phyllis-like figure, a new idea
took possession of him: needless to say, however, it was in the line
of another personal aggrievement, albeit it took the form of religious
reflection.

"It's curous, Minty, wot's foreordained, and wot ain't. Now, yer's one
of them high and mighty fellows, after the Lord, ez comes meanderin'
around here, and drops off--ez fur ez I kin hear--in a kind o' faint at
the first house he kems to, and is taken in and lodged and sumptuously
fed; and, nat'rally, they gets their reward for it. Now wot's to hev
kept that young feller from coming HERE and droppin' down in my forge,
or in this very room, and YOU a tendin' him, and jist layin' over them
folks at The Lookout?"

"Wot's got hold o' ye, Pop? Don't I tell ye he had a letter to Jim
Bradley?" said Minty, quickly, with an angry flash of color in her
cheek.

"That ain't it," said Sharpe confidently; "it's cos he WALKED.
Nat'rally, you'd think he'd RIDE, being high and mighty, and that's
where, ez the parson will tell ye, wot's merely fi-nite and human wisdom
errs! Ef that feller had ridden, he'd have had to come by this yer
road, and by this yer forge, and stop a spell like any other. But it
was foreordained that he should walk, jest cos it wasn't generally
kalkilated and reckoned on. So, YOU had no show."

For a moment, Minty seemed struck with her father's original theory.