vexation. "My dear girl, if you dislike me so much that you would
rather run away than marry me, I won't say another word about it.
I'll manage to smooth things over with my uncle for the present--
just to prevent his fretting himself--and you shall not be
worried--"

"You must not be worried either," she said. "You will not
understand, and you do not think!--but just suppose it possible
that, after all, my own parents did remember me at last and came
to look after me--and that they were perhaps dreadful wicked
people--"

Robin smiled.

"The man who brought you here was a gentleman," he said--"Uncle
Hugo told me so this morning, and said he was the finest-looking
man he had ever seen."

Innocent was silent a moment.

"You think he was a 'gentleman' to desert his own child?" she
asked.

Robin hesitated.

"Dear, you don't know the world," he said--"There may have been
all sorts of dangers and difficulties--anyhow, _I_ don't bear him
any grudge! He gave you to Briar Farm!"

She sighed, and made no response. Inadvertently they had walked