"What's her name?"
How cold the words were; like little sharp icicles. Ah! Womankind! Velvet soft, iron hard; dove merciful, tiger cruel; heaven breasted, hell armed; honey lipped, gall tongued!
"They call her Lessie."
Her sweetly bowed mouth had turned to a straight line of scarlet as she shook her head.
"I don't mix with the rabble here."
She spoke to cut, and she succeeded. The insolent words bit sharply, and a flame-like resentment set a hot reply on my tongue, but I withheld it. I waited a while, that my speech might not betray my agitation.
"She lives with her granny and gran'fer on Lizard Point. Surely you have seen her at church? Granny is very conscientious, I'm sure, in the performance of her church du——"
"I never go to church!" interrupted Father John's niece. "But I think I know the people to whom you refer," she added, at once. "I cannot recall the name of the family, however.... You must be extraordinarily stupid not to have learned her surname, being in love with her."
Evidently Miss Drane was ignorant of the circumstances surrounding the Dryad's birth, and a great wave of relief rolled up in my breast when I was assured of this.
"A man doesn't love a girl's name," I thought. Then I said: