“I think I can,—that is, I think I can understand why—” he was going to add, “why they should love you;” but he stopped, ashamed of his own eagerness.
She waited a moment for him to continue, and then, herself blushing, as though she had guessed his embarrassment, she turned away.
“And this book that we have been forgetting,—let us go and search for it,” said she, walking on rapidly in front of him; but he was speedily at her side again.
“Look there, brother Peter,—look there!” said Miss Dinah, as she pointed after them, “and see how well fitted we are to be guardians to a young lady!”
“I see no harm in it, Dinah,—I protest, I see no harm in it.”
“Possibly not, brother Peter, and it may only be a part of your system for making her—as you phrase it—feel a holy horror of the convent.”
“Well,” said he, meditatively, “he seems a fine, frank-hearted young fellow, and in this world she is about to enter, her first experiences might easily be worse.”
“I vow and declare,” cried she, warmly, “I believe it is your slipshod philosophy that makes me as severe as a holy inquisitor!”
“Every evil calls forth its own correction, Dinah,” said he, laughing. “If there were no fools to skate on the Serpentine, there had been no Humane Society.”
“One might grow tired of the task of resuscitating, Peter Barrington,” said she, hardly.