“Afraid of a fall, eh?” laughed Mr Bagnall. “Well, ladies are not expected to be as venturesome as men.”
Now, why do men always fancy that it is a woman’s duty to do what men expect her? I cannot see it one bit.
“I was not afraid of that, Sir,” said Flora.
Father, with whom Flora is a favourite, was listening with a smile. I believe Aunt Drummond was his pet sister.
“No? Why, what then?” said Mr Bagnall, shaking the pepper over his turkey pie until I wondered what sort of a throat he would have when he had finished it.
“I am afraid of hardening my heart, Sir,” said Flora, in her calm decisive way.
“Hardening your heart, girl! What do you mean?” said Father. “Hardening your heart by riding to hounds!”
“A little puzzling, certainly,” said Sir Robert Dacre, who sat opposite. “We must ask Miss Drummond to explain.”
He did not speak in that disagreeable way that Mr Bagnall did; but Flora flushed up when she found three gentlemen looking at her, and asking her for an explanation.
“I mean,” she answered, “that one hardens one’s heart by taking pleasure in anything which gives another creature pain. But I beg your pardon; indeed I did not mean to put myself forward.”