“To meet you.”
“To meet me!”
“With no other object. I came from Kilkenny this morning expressly to see you, and learning at your house that you had come on here, I followed. You still look astonished,—incredulous—”
“Oh, no; not incredulous, but very much astonished. I am, it is true, sufficiently accustomed to find myself in request in my own narrow home circle, but that any one out of it should come three yards—not to say three miles—to speak to me, is, I own, very new and very strange.”
“Is not this profession of humility a little—a very little—bit of exaggeration, Miss Dill?”
“Is not the remark you have made on it a little—a very little—bit of a liberty, Mr. Conyers?”
So little was he prepared for this retort that he flushed up to his forehead, and for an instant was unable to recover himself: meanwhile, she was busy in rescuing Scratch from a long bramble that had most uncomfortably associated itself with his tail, in gratitude for which service the beast jumped up on her with all the uncouth activity of his race.
“He at least, Miss Dill, can take liberties unrebuked,” said Conyers, with irritation.
“We are very old friends, sir, and understand each other's humors, not to say that Scratch knows well he 'd be tied up if he were to transgress.”
Conyers smiled; an almost irresistible desire to utter a smartness crossed his mind, and he found it all but impossible to resist saying something about accepting the bonds if he could but accomplish the transgression; but he bethought in time how unequal the war of banter would be between them, and it was with a quiet gravity he began: “I came to speak to you about Tom—”