'You don't mean to say you are going to be such a—that you refuse seven hundred a year?' said Henley, stopping short.
'Confound it!' cried George, 'can't you all leave a poor fellow in peace?' And he burst out of the room.
'Come here, Dolly,' said Mrs. Palmer, from a distant corner of the room; 'make this foolish darling do as his aunt wishes. I am sure the Admiral would quite feel as I do.'
'Seven hundred a year,' said Lady Sarah. 'Wretched boy! I shall sell the presentation.'
'Oh, Robert!' said Dolly, 'he is right if he can't make up his mind. I know Aunt Sarah thinks so.'
Dolly could not help being vexed with Robert. He shrugged his shoulders, said that George would regret his decision, and went on to talk of various plans that he himself had at heart, just as if George had never existed.
'I want you to trust Dolly to me for a few days,' said he. 'I want to take her down to Smokethwaite with my aunt. She must see Jonah before he leaves. They all write, and urge her coming.'
Lady Sarah agreed, with a sigh, and her eyes filled with tears. She turned away abruptly to hide them.
Many and many were the tears she wiped away, for fear Dolly should see them. George's whole body was not so dear to her as Dolly's little finger. She blamed herself in vain afterwards, when it was too late. Sometimes she could hardly bear to see her niece come into the room with her smiling face, and she scarcely answered when the sweet girl's voice came echoing and calling about the house. Could it be true that it was going, that sweet voice? Laughing, scolding, chattering, hour by hour—were the many footsteps going, too, and the rustle of her dress, and the look of her happy eyes? was the time already come for Dolly to fly away from the old nest that had sheltered her for so short a time? She seemed scarcely to have come—scarcely to have begun her sweet home song—and already she was eager to go!
But Rhoda had come up, looking very pale, to say good-night. As she said good-by, Dolly followed her out, and tried to put in some little word for George. 'Rhoda, he has been true to himself,' she whispered; 'that is best of all—is not it?'