“Like? Oh, like—a governess! Stiff, prim—won’t talk, or can’t talk. Awful mistake for her to have such a pretty face; it’s thrown away on a girl like that.”
“Perhaps she’ll talk by and by. I think life at the Vicarage doesn’t encourage liveliness much. Where is she now?”
“Up-stairs with mamma and Lil. I say, she’s my discovery; I brought her here, and I won’t have you monopolizing her. I’ve seen you staring at her in church, and wrinkling up your ugly face with annoyance because she wouldn’t look at you; but——”
“My dear boy, you shall have undisturbed possession of your prize, as far as I am concerned. I don’t look for my goddesses in the Sunday-school. I admire your wisdom, though, all the same. She can do you no possible harm, and will give you some excellent advice as a reward for your attentions.”
“Hope she’ll give you a snub as a reward for yours!” said Harry, with a heartiness which went beyond brotherly pleasantry.
Both faces were darkening into frowns when the dinner-bell rang. When they entered the dining-room, as they did together a few minutes later, they found little Miss Lane completely engrossed by their youngest brother, a great overgrown lad of fifteen or sixteen, whose usual shyness with women had been overcome in a quarter of an hour’s tête-à-tête with the governess in the drawing-room. He had placed her in the seat between his own and his father’s; but, before he had had time to sit down, George dropped quietly into the chair he was holding.
“That’s my place,” said he roughly.
“Mine for to-night, dear William,” answered his elder brother coolly, bending his handsome face close to that of the girl by his side. “This is a pleasure I have long wished for, Miss Lane,” he said, in the tender tones of the experienced flirt.
She looked at him shyly, laughed and blushed.
“It is very unkind of you to laugh. Don’t you believe me?”