‘You told her so!’
‘She told me so, and one does not contradict a lady.’
‘Something must have put it into her head.’
‘Only to be accounted for by an unrequited attachment,’ laughed Owen; ‘depend on it, a comparison of dates would show Hastings’s incarceration to have been the epoch of Rashe’s taking to the high masculine line—
‘“If e’er she loved, ’twas him alone
Who lived within the jug of stone.”’
‘For shame, Owen; Rashe never was in love.’
But he went on laughing at Rashe’s disappointment at his solitary arrival till she said, tartly, ‘You cannot wonder at our
thinking you must have some reason for neither mentioning your companion’s name nor bringing him with you.’
‘In fact, no man not under a cloud could abstain from paying homage to the queen of the anglers.’
It was so true as to raise an angry spot on her cheek, and provoke the hasty excuse, ‘It would have been obvious to have brought your friend to see your cousin and sister.’