“No, Philip, you are the truest and best of brothers.”
“At any rate you won’t——” Then he paused.
“No, I won’t.”
“That’s a promise to your best and dearest brother?” She nodded her head again, and he was satisfied.
He went away, and when he returned to Launay at the end of four months he found that things were not going on pleasantly at the Park. Mr. Morrison had been refused, with a positive assurance from the young lady that she would never change her mind, and Mrs. Miles had become more stern than ever in the performance of her duty to her family.
CHAPTER III.
HOW BESSY PRYOR CAME TO LOVE THE HEIR OF LAUNAY.
Matters became very unpleasant at the Park soon after Philip went away. There had been something in his manner as he left, and a silence in regard to him on Bessy’s part, which created, not at first surprise, but uneasiness in the mind of Mrs. Miles. Bessy hardly mentioned his name, and Mrs. Miles knew enough of the world to feel that such restraint must have a cause. It would have been natural for a girl so circumstanced to have been full of Philip and his botany. Feeling this she instigated the parson to renewed attempts; but the parson had to tell her that there was no chance for him. “What has she said?” asked Mrs. Miles.
“That it can never be.”
“But it shall be,” said Mrs. Miles, stirred on this occasion to an assertion of the obstinacy which was in her nature. Then there was a most unpleasant scene between the old lady and her dependent. “What is it that you expect?” she asked.
“Expect, aunt!” Bessy had been instructed to call Mrs. Miles her aunt.