He wondered if the older
woman thought he might marry her daughter. And wondering he came to the
conclusion that the other thing would please the mother almost as well.
She had given him to understand that at Fanny's age she would know how
to please any Mr. Howat Penny that chance fortune might bring her.
That some such worldly advice had been poured into Fanny's ears he
could not doubt; and he admired the girl's obvious scorn of such wiles
and surrenders. She sat frankly beside him now, as he finished a
wretched supper, and asked about the country in regions to which she had
not penetrated. "It's a three days' trip," he finished a recital of an
excursion of his own.
"I'd like to go," she returned; "but I suppose I couldn't find it
alone."
He was considering the possibility of such a journey with her--it would
be pleasant in the extreme--when her mother interrupted them from the
foot of the stair.
"A sensible girl," she declared, "would think about seeing the sights of
a city, and of a cherry-derry dress with ribbons, instead of all this
about tramping off through the woods with a ragged skirt about your
naked knees."
Fanny Gilkan's face darkened, and she glanced swiftly at Howat Penny. He
was filling a pipe, unmoved.
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