"Not from you, Uncle Indefer, but from him."
"And why from him?"
"Because I don't love him."
"Must you always run away from the people you do not love?"
"Yes, when the people, or person, is a man, and when the man has been told that he ought specially to love me."
When she said this she looked into her uncle's face, smiling indeed, but still asking a serious question. He dared to make no answer, but by his face he told the truth. He had declared his wishes to his nephew.
"Not that I mean to be in the least afraid of him," she continued. "Perhaps it will be better that I should see him, and if he speaks to me have it out with him. How long would he stay?"
"A month, I suppose. He can come for a month."
"Then I'll stay for the first week. I must go to Hereford before the summer is over. Shall I write to him?" Then it was settled as she had proposed. She wrote all her uncle's letters, even to her cousin Henry, unless there was, by chance, something very special to be communicated. On the present occasion she sent the invitation as follows:—
Llanfeare, 17th June, 187—, Monday.
My dear Henry,
Your uncle wants you to come here on the 1st July and stay for a month. The 1st of July will be Monday. Do not travel on a Sunday as you did last time, because he does not like it. I shall be here the first part of the time, and then I shall go to Hereford. It is in the middle of the summer only that I can leave him. Your affectionate cousin,
Isabel Brodrick.