"Oh! Can I? Ye're not goin' till I tell you. Don't you think it!"

"I'm goin'. I saw Mr. Derek this mornin'. They'll get me a place there."

Tom Gaunt remained with his fork as it were transfixed. The effort of
devising contradiction to the chief supporters of his own rebellion was
for the moment too much for him. He resumed mastication.

"You'll go where I want you to go; and don't you think you can tell me
where that is."

In the silence that ensued the only sound was that of old Gaunt supping
at his crusty-broth. Then the rogue-girl went to the window and, taking
the little cat on her breast, sat looking out into the rain. Having
finished his broth, old Gaunt got up, and, behind his son's back, he
looked at his granddaughter and thought:

'Goin' to London! 'Twud be best for us all. WE shudn' need to be movin',
then. Goin' to London!' But he felt desolate.


CHAPTER XIV


When Spring and first love meet in a girl's heart, then the birds sing.

The songs that blackbirds and dusty-coated thrushes flung through
Nedda's window when she awoke in Hampstead those May mornings seemed to
have been sung by herself all night. Whether the sun were flashing on