"A tailor!" she gasped, incredulous now, hopeful once more that the young man was mayhap suffering from megrims and had seen unpleasant visions, which had no life or reality in them.
"A tailor's daughter?" she repeated. "Impossible!"
"Only too true," he rejoined. "I had no choice in the matter."
"Who had?"
"My parents."
"Tush!" she retorted scornfully, "and you a man!"
"Nay! I was not a man then."
"Evidently."
"I was in my seventh year!" he exclaimed pathetically.
There was a slight pause, during which the swiftly-risen hope a few moments ago once more died away. Then she said drily: