“Mr Forbes.”
“No!”
“True, I assure you. He was going further north with them.”
“Then it will all come on again. It must. She could not have allowed him to join them if he was to be dismissed again.”
“So I fancied.”
“So you know, I should think. The very idea would be preposterous. They will come home re-engaged. Such an odd position!” Millie’s heart joyfully echoed the conviction. She did not venture to talk about it to her mother, who might guess too much, but to her friend, with whom no fencing was necessary, she might play round the subject at her pleasure. Wareham’s name had not as yet been mentioned, but Lady Fanny had a curious interest in Miss Dalrymple, and her persuasion that now she would be captured and led to marriage, Millie felt to be so reasonable that she was not troubled with misgivings as to the pleasure with which her heart responded. To most of us persuasion is another word for doubt, but Fanny was young enough to be convinced of her persuasions. She wished to hear more, all that Millie could tell her, and drew her conclusions with swift security. If ever she had been disposed to blame, she forgave her sister-woman amply.
“Of course she liked him throughout, she did not know her own heart!” she cried with enthusiasm. “Poor thing, how I can feel for her!”
If there was a certain incongruity in the epithet as applied to Anne, Millie did not quarrel with it.
“And I like him, I like him too! He has shown himself above the common herd. Men are so petty in their unforgivingness, so vain of pretending to be marble! He is the more of a hero, for not setting up to be other than flesh and blood. He will win her, you will see! unless—”
“Unless what?”