Paladin carried a basket of wool into the dying shed, looking on his eldest as she stirred the dye with a wooden paddle. “So,” he said, “you’ve set aside your fascination for Frodo in favor of Isumbard?”
She shrugged. “What I felt for Frodo wasn’t true love, Da. I was too young to appreciate what being married to him might mean.”
“I’m sorry, lass,” he said, laying his hand on Pearl’s shoulder. “It’s not easy to let such a love die.”
She looked up, and he saw that she did feel pain, no matter how lightly she spoke of it.