'Oh, Mary, how unfeeling!'
'I thought it could be doing no good!'
'That is so like prudent people, who can allow no true love under five hundred pounds a year! Did you see them? How did they look?'
'Charlotte was standing in an attitude, her hands clasped over her broom. The gentleman was a country-looking boy—'
'Bearing himself like a sensible, pugnacious cock-robin? Poor fellow, so you marred their parting.'
'Charlotte flew into the house, and the boy walked off up the garden. Was he your Madison, Louis? for I thought my aunt did not think it right to encourage him about her house.'
'And so he is to be thwarted in what would best raise and refine him. That great, bright leading star of a well-placed affection is not to be allowed to help him through all the storms and quicksands in his way.'
Good Mary might well open her eyes, but, pondering a little, she said, 'He need not leave off liking Charlotte, if that is to do him good; but I suppose the question is, what is safest for her?'
'Well, he is safe enough. He is gone to Illershall to earn her.'
'Oh! then I don't care! But you have not answered me, and I think I can guess the boy's secret that you have been keeping. Did you not once tell me that you trusted those stones in Ferny dell to him?'