Carry's thoughts once fairly directed to this subject they returned again to it very frequently. By what her father had said she would have been a lady had he not been unfortunate, and why should she not regain the position for herself and him? Indeed, she had felt strongly attracted by Fred Bingham. She liked the merry, good tempered, cheerful young fellow; he was so attentive, so evidently fond of her. Indeed, it was only the strong influence which the one visit of Frank Maynard had exercised over her which had hitherto kept this feeling in check. Now, smarting with pique and resentment against Frank, the feeling returned with redoubled force. Why, she asked herself, should she throw away an honest love for a chimera? Why should she not make herself happy with Fred Bingham? And so from this time she relaxed in her stiffness with him, and his visits to the tobacconist's became longer and more frequent, the conversations between them more interesting and confidential, and there was less of badinage now, and more of blushing on her part.
Carry was a very simple, innocent girl. Brought up under her father's wing, she had absolutely no thought of evil. As soon as she really felt Fred Bingham loved her, she had little hesitation in giving her whole heart to him, and in feeling very happy in so doing. And so time went on, and the gossips of the street began to remark how very often that fair young gentleman was in at Walker's shop, and the ill-natured ones soon began to shake their heads and to say, it was a pity Carry Walker had not a mother to look after her. Which, indeed, it was. She was ignorant and unsuspicious of harm as Una herself, only, unfortunately, she had no lion to protect her. A mother would have told her that even if she considered herself engaged to Fred Bingham, as in another two or three months she did, it would yet be much wiser not to meet him accidentally so often during the walks, which, at her father's wish, she was in the habit of taking daily. But Carry had no such adviser, and never dreamt on the edge of what a precipice she was walking.
CHAPTER VI.
LOSING THE GLOVES.
“I tell you what, Frank, you are getting extremely snappish and disagreeable,” Prescott said one day to his friend, “the sooner you go out of town the better.”
“Do you know, Prescott, I quite agree with you. I am. I am sick of this sort of life, and I want a change.”
“You were talking of buying a yacht, Frank. We are in June now. If you really mean to do anything in that way this year, it is time to be seeing about it.”
“Pooh! nonsense, man. You know what I mean. I want to go down into Staffordshire again, but I don't see what excuse to make.”
“I suppose the proper thing to do, Frank, is to write to Mr. Drake to ask his permission to pay your addresses to his niece.”