"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.