"It's very late. I must go; auntie will be--"
"One soft spring day I was sitting in a room alone with a young lady--"
Addie stops unconsciously, interested in spite of herself.
"A young lady whom I knew very slightly, and in whom I had hitherto taken not the faintest interest."
"Until she happened to hand me a cup of tea--"
"And the fancy suddenly struck me that I should like to marry that girl; and, before I had finished my cup, my mind was made up--I determined she should be my wife. That's all."
"That's all, is it?" says Addie, drawing a long breath. "I--I don't like your story much. You were determined, were you? And do you always get what you determine on?"
"I don't want to boast; but I've been rather lucky up to the present."
"And, if the thing--the person is determined the other way, what then?"
"What then? You know every Britisher has a bit of the bull in him, and enjoys his fight, and you have heard also that flowers out of reach--nearly out of reach--smell the sweetest."
"Oh, there speaks the man all over! You've one touch of nature with my boys, at any rate, Mr. Armstrong--anything well out of reach has the most attraction for them. Bob always gathers his fruit from the ridge of the wall, and Hal would climb the tallest elm in the grove to rob a nest, and yet never lay hand on that of the thrush that builds every year in the gloire de Dijon under the window."
"Well, my limbs are not as supple as they were twenty years ago. I wonder shall I have to climb very high for the nest I want?"
They have now reached the brougham, into which he assists her carefully, placing his stout ash by her side.
"Better keep it for a day or two, Miss Lefroy--you may find it serviceable; and remember the doctor's instruction."
He busies himself for a few moments propping up her foot with shawls and cushions, and then, as the horse is about to start, says in a low voice, looking up in her face entreatingly--
"You are very kind," says poor Addie for the fourth and last time that day; and then the horse plunges forward, and she is off.
"What will they say? What will they do?" thinks Addie, with shuddering presentiment as she is being driven along the high-road to Nutsford. "And how can I tell them about it? Oh, the worst part of all is before me now! How can I tell them about it--how can I tell them? If I only knew how they'd take it--could only guess! But I can't--I can't! Aunt Jo will be pleased, I think. She will say it's an intervention of Providence, the turning of the tide, perhaps; but Aunt Jo is old, and can't feel like the young--and then of course she's not a Lefroy. That's the great point--she's not a Lefroy. Perhaps Bob will never speak to me again for letting him say so much to me as he did; perhaps Pauline will disown me too, if she hears Bob is so proud, so resentful, so tetchy about the family prestige! It may be an awful blow to him, poor darling--and he going away, too, full of sorrow and trouble already! Wouldn't it be better if I said nothing at all about it until he had left? But then--then--I've got only until to-morrow, and I've promised an answer. Oh, dear! oh, dear! what am I to do? Why did I go clambering up into that wretched tree, like the shameful tomboy that I am? Why didn't I study quietly at home as the aunt suggested--why, why? Good gracious, the farm already! How that horse flies! Perhaps they'll guess, they'll suspect something, when they see me in his brougham? And Hal is so vulgar, so exasperating when he begins to chaff, and Lottie asks such dreadful, dreadful questions!"