"Verily," I replied, and looked at Barbara, and saw that she knitted just as actively and deftly as usual. This did not please me quite, for I should have liked to see her pause and look up with much interest manifested. But nay: she was ever the same. I could not guard my vain tongue as I should have done; so, forgetting even her father's presence, I said, "Friend Barbara, is thee sorry to see me go?"
"Thee knows what is best for thee to do," said she.
"Perhaps thy mind is not inclined to me as much as I had hoped?" I said with considerable hot-headedness.
"Thee is to me what thee has ever been--neither more nor less."
"Barbara!" said her father with a high-raised voice.
She started up before him, her face very much increased in color, and she folded her arms above her kerchief. "Father," she said, "if thee thinks I am old enough to marry, _I_ think I am old enough to form an opinion of my own. Had I been in Samuel Biddle's place, and an offer of change of residence had been proffered to me, I should first have gone to the woman who was to be my wife and told her the bearings of the case, and let her tell her father: I should never have gone to her father first."
She would have gone from the room, but her father called her back and bade her resume her sewing; which she did, though I saw her neckerchief rise and fall as though her heart were unusually perturbed beneath it.
"Is thee grown perverse?" said her father angrily.
"Nay," she answered. "I am my father's daughter: my will is my own."
"Friend Hicks," said I, in much pain, "I pray thee let me go: I have unwittingly caused this. It has been because I set my mind so wilfully upon thy daughter that I forgot all else but her, and had not the courage to say to her what I did to thee."
He spoke long and earnestly to me then, and when we looked around Barbara had quietly quitted the room.
But as I went sore of spirit down the lane on my way home she suddenly faced me. There were marks upon her face as of the stains of drops of water, and her eyes, I perceived, were heavy and swollen. "Will thee forgive me, Samuel Biddle?" said she.
"Thee knows I was headstrong," she said, taking my sleeve in her hand.
"Not more so than I, for I made up my mind to marry thee, and, I fear me, thought more of myself than of thee." She looked with compassion, I thought, upon me.