"Oh, no, I haven't, now," says Rodney, reassuringly "You don't look a bit unhappy; you only look as sweet as an angel."
"You never saw an angel, so you can't say," says Mona, still sadly severe. "And I am unhappy. How will your mother, Mrs. Rodney, like your marrying me, when you might marry so many other people,—that Miss Mansergh, for instance?"
"Oh, nonsense!" says Rodney, who is in high good humor and can see no rocks ahead. "When my mother sees you she will fall in love with you on the spot, as will everybody else. But look here, you know, you mustn't call her Mrs. Rodney!"
"Why?" says Mona. "I couldn't well call her any thing else until I know her."
"That isn't her name at all," says Geoffrey. "My father was a baronet, you know: she is Lady Rodney."
"What!" says Mona And then she grows quite pale, and, slipping off the stile, stands a few yards away from him.
"That puts an end to everything," she says, in a dreadful little voice that goes to his heart, "at once. I could never face any one with a title. What will she say when she hears you are going to marry a farmer's niece? It is shameful of you," says Mona, with as much indignation as if the young man opposite to her, who is making strenuous but vain efforts to speak, has just been convicted of some heinous crime. "It is disgraceful! I wonder at you! That is twice you have deceived me."
"If you would only hear me——"
"I have heard too much already. I won't listen to any more. 'Lady Rodney!' I dare say"—with awful meaning in her tone—"you have got a title too!" Then, sternly, "Have you?"
"No, no indeed. I give you my honor, no," says Geoffrey, very earnestly, feeling that Fate has been more than kind to him in that she has denied him a handle to his name.