"How pretty that is! Yet I should like you to see me, if only for once, as you have seen others," says Mona.
"I should like it too. And it could be managed, couldn't it? I suppose I could get you a dress."
He says this quickly, yet fearfully. If she should take his proposal badly, what shall he do? He stares with flattering persistency upon a distant donkey that adorns a neighboring field, and calmly awaits fate. It is for once kind to him. Mona, it is quite evident, fails to see any impropriety in his speech.
"Could you?" she says hopefully. "How?"
Mr. Rodney, basely forsaking the donkey, returns to his mutton. "There must be a dressmaker in Dublin," he says, "and we could write to her. Don't you know one?"
"I don't, but I know Lady Mary and Miss Blake always get their things from a woman called Manning."
"Then Manning it shall be," says Geoffrey, gayly. "I'll run up to Dublin, and if you give me your measure I'll bring a gown back to you."
"Oh, no, don't," says Mona, earnestly. Then she stops short, and blushes a faint sweet crimson.
"But why?" demands he, dense as men will be at times. Then, as she refuses to enlighten his ignorance, slowly the truth dawns upon him.
"Do you mean that you would really miss me if I left you for only one day?" he asks, delightedly. "Mona, tell me the truth."