Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar онлайн

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“You are quite right, Mr. Richard—​it shall not do so.”

“But it does, lass, anyone can see that it does. Tell me, do ye think yourself the same gell as came here some five year and a half agone?”

“I hope I am,” she murmured; “time has changed me a little, I suppose.”

“Jane,” said Ashbrook, “we are one an’ all of us fond of ye. I had somethin’ to say that mustn’t go unsaid. Listen—​ye’d not disgrace any man, and ye’d be no discredit to any farmer as the mistress o’ his house—​as his wife—​do ye understand what I mean?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, I don’t want to see ’ee fade away before my very eyes, under my very nose. I can’t and won’t stand that, an’ ye shall not if I can help it.”

Then he took her hand in his own and said, in a voice broken by emotion—

“I love ye, Jane.”

Then he placed his other arm across her shoulders and said no more.

The pale cheeks of Jane Ryan were suffused with a deep flush of red, in another moment they became paler than ever.

“Ah! ah!” she ejaculated, after a pause—​“ah, Mr. Richard, ye do not know what ye’ve been sayin’.”