“Because your father has set his heart on it, I tell you! Isn't that enough, you tiresome little wretch? I will not have it—not if you break your heart over it!—There!”
Barbara burst out in a laugh that rang like a bronze bell.
“Break my heart for Mr. Lestrange! There's not a man in the world I would break my little finger for! But my heart! that is too funny! You needn't be uneasy, mamma; I don't like Arthur Lestrange one bit, and I wouldn't marry him if you and papa too wanted me. Oh, such a proper young man! He doesn't think me fit company for his sister!”
“He said so! and you didn't give him a cut over the eyes with your whip? My God!”
“Gracious, no! He never says anything half so amusing! He's scorchingly polite! I would sooner fall in love with the bookbinder!”
“The bookbinder? Who's that? You mean the tutor, I suppose! I'm not up to the slang of this old brute of a country!”
“No, mamma; there is a man binding—or mending rather, the books in the library. He's going to teach me to shoe Miss Brown! Papa wouldn't like me to marry a blacksmith—I mean a bookbinder—would he?”
“Certainly not.”
“Then you would, mamma?” said Bab demurely, with two catherine-wheels of fun in her downcast eyes.
“If you go to do anything mad now, I'll—”