"That's ever so kind of you, Amy, and I appreciate it more than you imagine, but I'm going out this evening."
"Oh, of course, sisters are of no account. What girl are you going to see?"
"No girl whatever. I am too old and dull to entertain the pretty creatures."
"Don't be fishing. You know one you could entertain if she isn't a pretty creature, but then she's only a sister who doesn't know much."
"I'm sorry—I must go," he said, a little abruptly, for her lovely, half-laughing, half-reproachful face, turned to his, contained such mocking promise of happiness that he could not look upon it. What was his urgent business? His rapid steps as he walked mile after mile indicated that the matter was pressing indeed; but, although it was late before he returned, he had spoken to no one. The house was dark and silent except that a light was burning in Burt's room. And his momentous fortunes the reader must now follow.
Miss Hargrove, with a fluttering heart, heard the rapid feet of his horse as he rode up the avenue. Truly, he was coming at a lover's pace. The door-bell rang, she heard him admitted, and expected the maid's tap at her door to follow. Why did it not come? Were the tumultuous throbs of her heart so loud that she could not hear it? What had become of him? She waited and listened in vain. She opened her door slightly; there was no sound. She went to her window. There below, like a shadow, stood a saddled horse. Where was the knight? Had the stupid girl shown him into the drawing-room and left him there? Surely the well-trained servant had never been guilty of such a blunder before. Could it have been some one else who had come to see her father on business? She stole down the stairway in a tremor of apprehension, and strolled into the parlor in the most nonchalant manner imaginable. It was lighted, but empty, and her expression suddenly became one of troubled perplexity. She returned to the hall, and started as if she had seen an apparition. There on the rack hung Burt's hat, as natural as life. Voices reached her ear from her father's study. She took a few swift steps toward it, then fled to her room, and stood panting before her mirror, which reflected a young lady in a costume charmingly ill adapted to "packing."
How flow swiftly the minutes passed! how eternally long they were! Would she be sent for? When would she be sent for? "It was honorable in him to speak to papa first, and papa would not, could not, answer him without consulting me. I cannot be treated as a child any longer," she muttered, with flashing eyes. "Papa loves me," she murmured, in swift alternation of gentle feeling. "He could not make my happiness secondary to a paltry sum of money."
Meanwhile Burt was pleading his cause. Mr. Hargrove had greeted him with no little surprise. The parting of the young people had not promised any such interview.
"Have you spoken to my daughter on this subject?" Mr. Hargrove asked, gravely, after the young fellow had rather incoherently made known his errand.
"No, sir," replied Burt, "I have not secured your permission. At the same time," he added, with an ominous flash in his blue eyes, "sincerity compels me to say that I could not take a final refusal from any lips except those of your daughter, and not readily from hers. I would not give up effort to win her until convinced that any amount of patient endeavor was useless. I should not persecute her, but I would ask her to reconsider an adverse answer as often as she would permit, and I will try with all my soul to render myself more worthy of her."