Page:Shirley (1849 Volume 2).djvu/214

 answer, while the spark in her glance dissolved to dew. "Are any within the mill hurt, I wonder? Is that your uncle?"

"It is, and there is Mr. Malone, and, oh Shirley! There is Robert!"

"Well," (resuming her former tone), "don't squeeze your fingers quite into my hand: I see, there is nothing wonderful in that. We knew he, at least, was here, whoever might be absent."

"He is coming here toward us, Shirley!"

"Towards the pump, that is to say, for the purpose of washing his hands and his forehead, which has got a scratch, I perceive."

"He bleeds, Shirley: don't hold me; I must go."

"Not a step."

"He is hurt, Shirley!"

"Fiddlestick!"

"But I must go to him: I wish to go so much: I cannot bear to be restrained."

"What for?"

"To speak to him, to ask how he is, and what I can do for him?"

"To teaze and annoy him; to make a spectacle of yourself and him before those soldiers, Mr. Malone, your uncle, et cetera. Would he like it think you? Would you like to remember it a week hence?"

"Am I always to be curbed and kept down?" demanded Caroline, a little passionately.