And the little figure went flitting here and there, now at the windows, looking out into the chill twilight, then bending over some great bunch of flowers inhaling the perfume, at the piano striking a few random chords, hovering round the tea table, flashing into the red firelight, melting into the cold shadows, like to some will-o'-the-wisp, some phantom, some restless shadow rather than anything of this earth.
"Florry, my pet," said Judith, at length, pausing in her knitting, "you will tire yourself running about so much." Whereupon the fairy floated airily towards the fire, and settled lightly down, like thistledown, on a footstool, where she sat clasping her knees with her arms with a cross expression of countenance, a very discontented fairy indeed.
"For really," she said, at length, pursuing a train of thought that was in her shallow mind, "to be called Spolger—Mrs. Jackson Spolger. It's horrid! so is he. The monster!"
"Florry, Florry! don't talk like that about your future husband," remonstrated Judith; "it's not nice, my dearest."
"Neither is he," retorted Miss Marson, resting her chin on her knees and staring into the fire; "he's so lean, like a skeleton, and so crabbed—oh, so crabbed."
"But he loves you, dear."
"Yes, like a dog loves a bone. I know he's one of those men who hit their wives over the head with a poker; he looks like a poker man. I wish he was Sebastian, and Sebastian was he."
"Don't talk about Sebastian, my dear Florence," said Miss Varlins, severely—that is, as severely as she could to Florry; "your father would never have agreed to your marrying such a scamp!"
"He's no worse than other people," muttered Florry, rebelliously.
"I don't know about other people," replied Judith, coldly; "but I'm certain Sebastian Melstane would have made you a bad husband. However, he's gone now, and you'll never see him again."