"Oh, so do I!" said Lesley, with heartfelt warmth.
"Do you? Why, child, I thought you liked him!"
"I never liked him much," said Lesley, faltering.
"And yet you have allowed him to come here day after day and practise with you? The ways of women are inscrutable," said Mr. Brooke, grimly, "and I can't profess to understand them. If you did not wish him to come, there was nothing to do but to close your doors against him."
"I shall be only too glad," said Lesley, eagerly.
"Oh—now? That is unnecessary: I shall do it myself," said her father, with the same dryness of tone that always made Lesley feel as if she were withering up to nothingness.
"I don't think he is very likely to come," she said, in a very low tone. Then, with a quick impulse to clear herself, and an effort which brought the blood in a burning tide to her fair face, she went on, hurriedly—"Father, you don't think I forgot that he"—and then she almost broke down, and "Ethel" was the only word that struck distinctly upon his ear.
"You mean," said Mr. Brooke, "that you do not forget that he is going to marry Ethel Kenyon? Perhaps not; but I
think that he does."
"I am not to blame for that," said Lesley, with a flash of the hot temper that occasionally leaped to light when she was talking with her father.