“That sounds very ungratefully,” said she, with a smile, “if but one half of what we hear be true.”
“What is it you have heard?”
“I 'm keeping Major Trafford from his cigar, Tom; he's too punctilious to smoke in my company, and so I shall leave him to you;” and so saying, she arose, and turned towards the cottage.
Trafford followed her on the instant, and overtook her at the porch.
“One word,—only one,” cried he, eagerly. “I see how I have been misrepresented to you. I see what you must think of me; but will you only hear me?”
“I have no right to hear you,” said she, coldly.
“Oh, do not say so, Lucy,” cried he, trying to take her hand, but which she quickly withdrew from him. “Do not say that you withdraw from me the only interest that attaches me to life. If you knew how friendless I am, you would not leave me.”
“He upon whom fortune smiles so pleasantly very seldom wants for any blandishments the world has to give; at least, I have always heard that people are invariably courteous to the prosperous.”
“And do you talk of me as prosperous?”
“Why, you are my brother's type of all that is luckiest in life. Only hear Tom on the subject! Hear him talk of his friend Trafford, and you will hear of one on whom all the good fairies showered their fairest gifts.”