"What's the matter?" asked Ivo.
"Pshaw! Nothing you can do any good to."
"Well, you'd better tell me."
"You've no taste for the world, and can't understand it. Whitsuntide is almost come, and then there's the bel-wether dance, and I haven't a sweetheart. I might have had one, but I was too saucy; and yet I don't want any other, and I'd be unconscionably mad if she were to take up with some one else. Such a bel-wether dance as this will be I would'nt give a copper for."
"Who is the proud beauty?"
"You know her well enough: Emmerence?"
Ivo barely repressed a start. He asked, quickly,--
"Have you gone with her long?"
"Why, that's what I'm telling you. She won't look at me. She's just as prudish and coy as a Diana."
"Do you mean to act fairly by her, and marry her?"