"A painter--an artist, as you say," said the young man, sulkily.
"Are you rich?"
"No; I have two hundred a year."
"As if we could marry on that!" scoffed Milly. "Are your parents alive?"
"No. I don't know anything about my parents. I have been an orphan ever since I can remember."
"Oh! So you have no money, no position, and--so far as I can see--no name; only your good looks, Mr. Lovel; and on these you wish to marry me. No, thank you, Mr. Egotist," sneered Miss Lester, with a curtsey. "I prefer to marry the squire of Barnstead."
Lovel was goaded into a retort. "You'll never marry him," he said, sharply, "if Gran Jimboy is to be believed."
"How horrid of you to talk like that, just when I was trying to forget what that old wretch said! Lucas"--she said the name with a glint of terror in her blue eyes--"do you believe in palmistry?"
"No," he responded, indifferently--"no more than I believe in Fate."
"But Gran Jimboy said that I should be killed--murdered!"