Lucilla faced about on the step above, with a face where interrogation was mingled with merry defiance.
‘So that is why the Calthorp could not get a word all the livelong dinner-time!’
‘Ah! I used you ill; I promised you an opportunity of studying “Cock Robin,” but you see I could not help keeping him myself—I had not seen him for so long.’
‘You were very welcome! It is the very creature that baffles me. I can talk to any animal in the world except an incipient parson.’
‘Owen, for instance?’
‘Oh! if people choose to put a force on nature, there can be no general rules. But, Cilly, you know I’ve always said you should marry whoever you liked; but I require another assurance—on your word and honour—that you are not irrevocably Jenny Wren as yet!’
‘Did you not see the currant wine?’ said Cilly, pulling leaves off a myrtle in a tub on the stairs, and scattering them over her cousin.
‘Seriously, Cilly! Ah, I see now—your exclusive attention to him entirely reassures me. You would never have served him so, if you had meant it.’
‘It was commonplace in me,’ said Lucilla, gravely, ‘but I could not help it; he made me feel so good—or so bad—that I believe I shall—’
‘Not give up the salmon,’ cried Horatia. ‘Cilly, you will drive me to commit matrimony on the spot.’