“Very, my dear; and his wife will be the finest lady in the county, with dresses, and carriages, and parties, and a town-house, I daresay.”
“I hope he’ll marry some one who loves him very much,” said the girl, simply.
“Of course he will, child. Why, any girl could love him. She ought to jump at the chance of having such a man. And now I must go, child. I was rather cross to you last night. I was worried with the preparations, and it did not look well for me to come and see that fellow with his hands through the window; but that won’t happen again. A little flirting’s all very well for once in a girl’s life, but there must be no more of it, and I know I shan’t have to speak any more.”
She hurried out of the room before the girl could reply, leaving her with her little forehead wrinkled by the puzzling, troubled thoughts which buzzed through her brain.
“Aunt must mean something,” she said to herself. “I wonder what she really does mean. She can’t really—oh, nonsense, what a little goose I am!”
Polly’s pretty little face puckered with a smile, and she took up her work, waiting to be called for breakfast, and sat wondering the while what Humphrey was doing.
Humphrey was away down by the disputed piece of land, and Trevor soon forgot all about him; for, crossing a field and leaping a stile, he stood in one of the winding lanes of the neighbourhood; then crossing it, and leaping another stile, he began to make his way along the side of a steep valley, when he stopped short; for, from amongst the trees in front, rang out, clear and musical—
“There came a lady along the strand,
Her fair hair bound with a golden band,
Sing heigh!”
And a second voice—
“Sing ho!”