Another might have rebuked the boy for speaking so disrespectfully; but Mark had little of the tutor spirit in him, after all. Rosalie was right in that.
They left the piazza, crossed the lawn, and took the narrow path leading along the course of the stream-the boys sometimes affectionately holding his hands, and sometimes one or the other suddenly breaking away to pluck and bring him an early violet, or eglantine rose, or to throw a pebble in the stream, where some small fish had started up. At last—
“Making such a fuss!” again complained Richard; “making such a fuss, and driving us about so that we boys can’t have a bit of peace of our lives! Just as if she were so much better than everybody else in the world, that so much trouble must be taken for her.”
“Whom are you talking of?” inquired Mr. Sutherland, carelessly.
“Why the young lady St. Gerald is going to marry, to be sure!”
“Ah, then, Mr. Ashley is going to bring home a wife, is he?”
“Why, of course he is!” said Henry, warming up. “He is going to be married to a beautiful young lady, very rich, who was the belle of the city last winter, they say!”
“Oh, she is as rich and as beautiful as a princess in a fairy book; and that’s what all the fuss is about,” sneered Richard.
“Don’t you mind Rich, Mr. Sutherland; he can’t bear to have a word said about anybody but himself!”
“As if I wanted anybody to bother themselves about me—I’m not so much like you as that,” retorted Richard. And thereupon arose the usual squabble between the lads, until their tutor interfered and restored order, if not good feeling.