"No, no, my lord, I pray you, do not," murmured Dorothy, with distracting little troubled wrinkles in her forehead. Her trouble was more for fear lest he would not than for dread that he would.
"I will, I will," cried his Lordship, softly; "I insist, and you shall not gainsay me."
The girl's only assent was silence, but that was sufficient for so enterprising a gallant as the noble Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. So he at once went to seek Sir George.
The old gentleman, although anxious to give Leicester a chance to press his suit with Dorothy, at first refused, but Leicester said:—
"My intentions are honorable, Sir George. If I can win your daughter's heart, it is my wish, if the queen's consent can be obtained, to ask Mistress Vernon's hand in marriage."
Sir George's breast swelled with pride and satisfaction, for Leicester's words were as near an offer of marriage as it was in his power to make. So the earl received, for Dorothy, permission to leave the Hall, and eagerly carried it to her.
"Your father consents gladly," said the earl. "Will you meet me half an hour hence at the stile?"
"Yes," murmured the girl, with shamelessly cast down eyes and drooping head. Leicester bowed himself away, and fully fifteen minutes before the appointed time left the Hall to wait in the cold at the stile for Dorothy.
Before the expiration of the tedious half hour our meek maiden went to her father and with deep modesty and affected shame said:—
"Father, is it your wish that I go out of the Hall for a few minutes to meet—to meet—" She apparently could not finish the sentence, so modest and shame-faced was she.