“I’ve got eyes, and plain common sense, I ’spose?”
“You don’t like Mr. Fortescue—why or wherefore, I cannot imagine; he’s always behaved well enough to you.”
“Perhaps he has; but I tell ’ee plainly, I don’t like him. I should be telling a lie if I said I did. We can’t help our likes and dislikes, none on us; and he isn’t one of my sort.”
Mrs. Ashbrook broke out into a laugh.
“You foolish girl!” exclaimed Mrs. Ashbrook. “You are both unjust and unfair.”
“I don’t like his ways, mum, and I think sooner or later you’ll be of my opinion, but, as I said afore, it beant any business of mine, so I’ll say no more about your newly-made friend.”
Patty Ashbrook was greatly annoyed and troubled by these observations, but she deemed it advisable not to press the question further, and so the matter dropped for some little time, but she afterwards remembered all that her maid had said.
CHAPTER CVIII.
KITTY’S SUSPICIONS—HER RENCONTRE WITH FORTESCUE.
Matters went on smoothly enough for some days after this, and no reference was made to the visitor at Stoke Ferry. Ashbrook made him his companion as heretofore, and his popularity had not in any way diminished.