"Don't—don't laugh, dear," she said gently. "I know my bodes are awful rubbish, but——"
Mrs. Twiss stared and took another chocolate.
"Oh, darling," she murmured. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. We all love your books. Well, you'll let me have the hundred, won't you, pet? We're going to name her Violet."
The little sad face under the old-fashioned, pheasant-winged hat softened a little. "I'll do my best, dear," she said. "Now I must go. Give my love to Moreton."
[CHAPTER VI]
It was about a week after Mrs. Walbridge's visit to Mrs. Twiss that Griselda went to the play with old Mrs. Wick and her son. Greatly to the girl's astonishment, Mr. Wick turned up two or three days after her decided rejection of him, and his manner had shown nothing of the traditional depression of the refused young man. Indeed, he seemed particularly gay, and had brought her some sweets—sticky balls rolled in wax paper, that he told her were the best sweets on earth.
"My mother made 'em," he said. "She's great at making things. These ones are a sort of nougat. You try one—you'll see——"
The uncouth looking sweetmeats were indeed delicious, and the two young people sat at the top of the stairs leading to the garden (for it was one of those odd, lost summer days that wander along through our island winters like lonely strayed children), and munched and talked, and talked and munched, in as friendly a way, Griselda thought, as if he had never mentioned marriage to her.