“Oh, Nelly,” she cried, throwing herself into an easy chair, and covering her face with her hands. “Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!” She opened her fingers and looked whimsically at her cousin, who, despising this stage business, said, impatiently:
“Well?”
“Do you know what Sholto came for?”
“To propose to you.”
“Stop, Nelly. You do not know what horrible things one may say in jest. He has proposed.”
“When will the wedding be?”
“Dont joke about it, please. I scarcely know how I have behaved, or what the meaning of the whole scene is, yet. Listen. Did you ever suspect that he was—what shall I say?—courting me?”
“I saw that he was trying to be tender in his own conceited way. I fully expected he would propose some day, if he could once reconcile himself to a wife who was not afraid of him.”
“And you never told me.”
“I thought you saw it for yourself; particularly as you encouraged him.”