“Tchah!” he cried contemptuously; “who cares for the disgrace? I’d just as soon believe that the sun and moon had run up again’ one another in the night as that you had taken the beggarly school pence. Don’t say another word about it, my dear: it makes me mad, as I told Miss Rebecca and Miss Beatrice yesterday. I said it was a pack of humbugging lies, and they ought to be ashamed of themselves for believing it. I know who had—”
“Hush! oh, pray hush!” cried Hazel piteously.
“All right, my dear, mum’s the word; but don’t you never say no word to me again about you having taken the money. It’s insulting William Forth Burge, that’s what it is.”
Hazel looked up sadly in his face, which was now scarlet with excitement.
“I thank you, Mr Burge,” she said simply; and then, smiling, “Am I not right in saying that you are a true gentleman?”
“No, no no, my dear; you are not right,” he replied sorrowfully.
“But I am!” she cried.
“No, my dear, no; but I know you think you are; and if—if you could go on thinking that I was just a little like a gentleman, you’d make me very happy indeed, for I do think a deal of you.”
“It is no thought—no fancy, Mr Burge; but the truth.”
“And if some day—say some day ever so far off—though it would be a pity to put it off long, for a fellow at my age don’t improve by keeping—I say if by-and-by—”