"I have not given her a workbox."
"Then the writing-desk. That's what a man has to endure when he will make himself head schoolmaster to a young lady. And so you're going to look after your charge with your limbs still in bandages?"
"Just so;" and then he took up the two letters and read them again, while Staveley still sat on the foot of the bed. "I wish I knew what to think about it," said Felix.
"About what?" said the other. And then there was another pause, and another reading of a portion of the letters.
"There seems something—something almost frightful to me," said Felix gravely, "in the idea of marrying a girl in a few months' time, who now, at so late a period of our engagement, writes to me in that sort of cold, formal way."
"It's the proper moulded-wife style, you may depend," said Augustus.
"I'll tell you what, Staveley, if you can talk to me seriously for five minutes, I shall be obliged to you. If that is impossible to you, say so, and I will drop the matter."
"Well, go on; I am serious enough in what I intend to express, even though I may not be so in my words."
"I'm beginning to have my doubts about this dear girl."
"I've had my doubts for some time."