"I don't know exactly how a brother feels. You have taken my fraternal regard for granted, but I am sure I have never professed any."
"Pardon me, if I have believed actions more expressive than words. I shall never commit a similar error."
With deeply wounded and indignant feelings, I walked rapidly on, without deigning to look at one so heartless and capricious. Mr. Regulus was right. He was not a proper companion. I would never allow him to walk with me again.
"Are you not familiar enough with my light, mocking way, Gabriella?" he cried, keeping pace with my accelerated steps. "Do not you know me well enough to understand when I am serious and when jesting? I have never professed fraternal regard, because I know a brother cannot feel half the—the interest for you that I do. I thought you knew it,—I dare not say more,—I cannot say less."
"No, no, do not say any more," said I, shrinking with indefinable dread; "I do not want any professions. I meant not to call them forth. If I alluded to you as a brother, it was because I wished to speak to you with the frankness of a sister. It is better that you should not walk with me from school,—it is not proper,—people will make remarks."
"Well, let them make them,—who cares?"
"I care, a great deal. I will not be the subject of village gossip."
"Who put this idea in your head, Gabriella? I know it did not originate there. You are too artless, too unsuspicious. Oh! I know," he added, with a heightened color and a raised tone, "you have been kept after school; you have had a lecture on propriety; you cannot deny it."
"I neither deny nor affirm any thing. It makes no difference who suggested it. My own judgment tells me it is right."
"The old fellow is jealous," said he with a laugh of derision, "but he cannot control my movements. The road is wide enough for us both, and the world is wider still."