“You need not do that, it is only a shirt for father. Besides, I have told you fifty times I have no favoured swain, as you call it.”
“Oh yes, I know you have; but you see I have a great difficulty in believing you.”
“Now, Mr. Bingham, really if you go on like that, I shall go into the next room,” the girl said, making, however, no effort to rise.
“Really, Carry, it is very hard on a man that he may not say what he thinks.”
“Yes, but you don’t think it”
“I do think it, Carry; on my honour I think you the very prettiest girl——”
“There now, sir, you see I am obliged to go,” Carry said, really getting up this time. “But then that’s fortunate; I can hear a ‘bus; so I am well rid of you.”
“Bye bye, Carry; I must be up in town this morning in good time, or I would stay for the next hour, if it were only to plague you.” And so he was gone.
Carry did not take up her work again for some time, but sat thinking quietly, till her father came into the shop from the room behind, when she began to work assiduously.
“Carry, you have not been out for the last two days. Put on your bonnet, child; I will mind the shop for a while. A little fresh air will do you good.”