“Too late for to-day; I'll do it to-morrow.”
“To-morrow will indeed be too late: Augustus said so distinctly. The appointment will be given to some one else—and then—”
“And then, you acute, logical and businesslike young lady?”
There was no time for ultra-delicacy. “And then you may not be able to marry Penelope for ten more years.”
“Penelope will be exceedingly obliged to you for suggesting the possibility, and taking me to task for it in this way—such a child as you?”
Am I a child? but it mattered not to him how old I seem to have grown. Nor did his satirical tone vex me as it once might have done.
“Forgive me,” I said; “I did not mean to take you to task. But it is not your own happiness alone which is at stake, and Penelope is my sister.”
Strange to say, he was not offended. Perhaps, if Penelope had sometimes spoken her mind to him, instead of everlastingly adoring him, he might have been the better for it.
Francis sighed, and made another scribble on his paper—“Do you think, you who seem to be well acquainted with your sister's mind, that Penelope would be exceedingly unhappy if—if I were to decline this appointment?”
“Decline—oh!—you're jesting.”