"Oh! I see; not worldly enough for boarding-school vulgarisms; but I, who am naughty enough to remember them now and then, will explain that there is nothing very terrible in a 'good catch.' It only means a handsome, fashionable, and rich man, whom every marriageable young lady is dying for and only one can get."
"Then our young neighbor will not answer to the character, for he is neither fashionable nor more than comfortably rich; nor has he any number of young ladies dying for him."
"Only one, perhaps?"
The same sidelong glance, the same crafty undercurrent in her questioning.
"If you mean Jessie, Mrs. Dennison, I am very sure she has no such feelings as you suspect, toward any one."
"Oh, I dare say not; one always likes to talk nonsense about such things, but it amounts to nothing. Of course, people are always expecting hosts of lovers when an heiress is in question, and Miss Lee has the reputation of immense expectations."
"Yes," I answered, artfully, "I am afraid Jessie will be very rich, indeed. Along that valley she will own land enough for a small principality, if such things were recognized in this country, and many a smoke-wreath that you see curling up from the city yonder comes from the dwellings that will yet be hers, and so will several foundries that are coining money for her out of iron."
Mrs. Dennison's eyes kindled. "Show me," she said, eagerly, and shading her eyes with one hand, "where does the land lie—this principality of which Jessie will be mistress?"
"Yonder to the left, around and far beyond that hill."
"The hill with so many grassy slopes, and crested with groves? That hill, and the lands around it, will it surely be Jessie Lee's inheritance?"