“Is Uncle Hatto inside?” she asked; and the answer was given to her by her own lover. Yes, he was within; but the old clerk was with him. Isa, however, signified her wish to see her uncle alone, and in a few minutes the ancient grey-haired servant of the house came out into the larger room.
“You can go in now, Miss Isa,” he said. And Isa found herself in the presence of her uncle before she had been two minutes under the roof. In the mean time Ernest Heine, her father, had said not a word, and Herbert knew that something very special must be about to occur.
“Well, my bonny bird,” said Uncle Hatto, “and what do you want at the bank?” Cheery words, such as these, were by no means uncommon with Uncle Hatto; but Isa knew very well that no presage could be drawn from them of any special good nature or temporary weakness on his part.
“Uncle Hatto,” she began, rushing at once into the middle of her affair, “you know, I believe, that I am engaged to marry Herbert Onslow?”
“I know no such thing,” said he. “I thought I understood your father specially to say that there had been no betrothal.”
“No, Uncle Hatto, there has been no betrothal; that certainly is true; but, nevertheless, we are engaged to each other.”
“Well,” said Uncle Hatto, very sourly; and now there was no longer any cheery tone, or any calling of pretty names.
“Perhaps you may think all this very foolish,” said Isa, who, in spite of her resolves to do so, was hardly able to look up gallantly into her uncle’s face as she thus talked of her own love affairs.
“Yes, I do,” said Uncle Hatto. “I do think it foolish for young people to hold themselves betrothed before they have got anything to live on, and so I have told your father. He answered me by saying that you were not betrothed.”
“Nor are we. Papa is quite right in that.”