Look here, Molly," he burst out impulsively, "I'm not going to be sentimental about you.

I haven't the least idea of making love to you--I've had enough of that sort of rot, God knows--but I do like you tremendously, and I want to stand to you as a big brother.

I never had a sister, you know," he added.
Something earnest and tender in his voice touched her generosity, which overflowed so easily.
"And I never had a brother," she rejoined.
"Then, that's where I'll come in, little cousin," he answered gently, and drawing her to him, kissed her cheek with a caress which surprised him by its unlikeness to the ordinary manifestations of love.
His hand was still on her shoulder, when he felt her start back from his grasp, and, turning quickly in the direction of her glance, he saw the miller looking at them from the thicket on the opposite side of the brook.

The anger in Abel's face had distorted his handsome features until they appeared swollen as if from drink, and for a single instant Gay imagined that it was indeed whisky and not passion that had wrought so brutal a change in him.
"So you've made a fool of me, too, Molly ?" he said when he had swung over the stream and stood facing her.
"You're all wrong, Revercomb," began Gay, and stopped the next instant, because Molly's hand had shot out to silence him.
"Will you be quiet ?" she flung at him impatiently; and then fixing her eyes on Abel, she waited silently for him to finish his speech.

That her lover's fiery temper had aroused her own, Gay realized as soon as he turned to her.