"Why nonsense?" she asked quickly. "If I am old enough to be married, I am old enough to be a woman----"
"Oh, I am not speaking of age," he interjected, in the same irritable tone. "Of course you are old enough to be married, but you are not old enough--and I hope you never will be--to worry yourself over other people's affairs. I want my little flower to be screened from all the rough winds of the world, and I am sure that is the desire of Lord Probus."
"There you go again!" she said, with a sad little smile. "I'm only just a hothouse plant, to be kept under glass. But that is what I don't want. I don't want to be treated as though I should crumple up if I were touched--I want to do my part in the world."
"Of course, my child, and your part is to look pretty and keep the frowns away from your forehead, and make other folks happy by being happy yourself."
"But really, father, I'm not a doll," she said, with just a touch of impatience in her voice. "I'm afraid I shall disappoint you, but I cannot help it. I've lived in dreamland all my life. Now I am awake, and nothing can ever be exactly the same again as it has been."
"Oh, I mean more than I can put into words," she said, dropping her eyes slowly to the floor. "Everything is broken up, if you understand. The old house is pulled down. The old plans and the old dreams are at an end. What is going to take their place I don't know. Time alone will tell." And she turned slowly round and walked out of the room.
An hour later she got into her bath-chair, and went out for her usual airing.
"I think, Billy," she said to her attendant, "we will drive through the plantation this afternoon. The downs will be too exposed to this wind."
"In the plantation it will be quite sheltered--don't you think so?"
"Most of the way it will," he answered; "but there ain't half as much wind as there was an hour ago."
"An hour ago it was blowing a gale. If it had kept on like that I shouldn't have thought of going out at all."
"Which would have been a pity," Billy answered, with a grin, "for the sun is a-shinin' beautiful."
Two or three times Billy had to stop the donkey, while he dragged large branches out of the way. They were almost on the point of turning back again when Dorothy said--