"Oh, yes, I dare say, if being happy means settling down and having a lot of squalling brats before you can say Jack Robinson. I know how it will be," says Billy, moodily "you will be an old woman before your time."
"Indeed I shall not," I cry, with much indignation, viewing with discomfort the ruins to which he has reduced my handsome castle. "I intend to keep young for ever so long. Why, I am only eighteen now, and I shan't be old until I am thirty. And, Billy," coaxingly, "you shall see what I shall do for you when I marry him: I will send you to Eton. There!"
"Why don't you say you will send me to the moon?" replies he, with withering contempt.
"But I will really; Marmaduke says I shall; and you are to spend all of your holidays at Strangemore; and I will keep a gun for you, and a dog; and maybe he will let me give you a horse."
"Oh, fiddlesticks!" says the dear boy. "Draw a line somewhere. You have said too much; and I've outgrown my belief in the 'Arabian Nights.' I will be quite content with the dog and gun."
"Well, you shall see. And Roland shall have money every now and then to pay his debts; and Dora shall have as many new dresses as she can wear; and for Mamma I will get one of those delightful easy-chairs we saw in the shop-window in Carston, the one that moves up and down, you know—and—- Oh, Billy! I think it is a glorious thing to be rich. If I could only do all I say, I believe I would marry him were he as ugly as sin."
In the enthusiasm of the moment I spring to my feet, and as I do so become fatally aware that not two yards from me stands Marmaduke, leaning against a tree. There is a curious, not altogether amiable, expression upon his face, that assures me he has overheard our conversation. Yet one cannot accuse him of eavesdropping, as if we had only taken the trouble to raise our heads our eyes must inevitably have met his.
I am palsied with shame and horror; I am stricken dumb; and Billy, looking lazily upwards from where he is stretched full length upon the sward to discover the cause, in his turn becomes aware of the enemy's presence. A moment later he is on his feet and has beaten a retreat, leaving me alone to face the foe.
Mr. Carrington comes slowly forward.
"Yes, I heard every word," he says, calmly, anger and reproach in his eyes.