“Thank you. Mr. Lawler has offered to take me,” answered she, freezingly.
“But Mr. Lawler has a bad cold, and ought not to be out at night.”
“Then I will go home alone.”
Harry turned white with rage. The handsome lad was not used to snubs from women of any class, when he took the trouble to pay them any attention. Stephen’s eyes gleamed maliciously.
“You won’t send me back? The air won’t hurt me in the least; I am out in it every night,” said he, eagerly.
She could not refuse the cripple, and, bowing very coldly to Harry, she went on with Stephen toward the Vicarage.
It was always a terrible ordeal to the sensitive little Southron to shake four cold hands and smile “good-night” up into four cold faces when, the day’s work over, she could run through the garden to the cottage built in one corner of it, where she lived with an old servant of the family to wait upon her. But to-night it was far more terrible than it had ever been before. One degree more of frost in the manner of papa, mamma, eldest girl, and second girl made her feel that her sin, in letting herself be carried off by those worldlings, and possibly enjoying their godless society, was grievous indeed. But they never guessed the pain they were inflicting. Nay, they meant to be rather kind about it; and Mrs. Mainwaring asked, not without veiled curiosity:
“Well, did you enjoy yourself at the Grange? I suppose they were very kind to you?”
“Oh, yes, very kind.”
“You had a beautiful dinner, didn’t you?” asked Betty, who was rather a gourmand.