“Thisbe!”
“I don’t care, Miss Milly, I will speak. Don’t have nowt to do wi’ him; he’s too handsome; never you have nowt to do wi’ a handsome man.”
Millicent’s ordinarily placid face assumed a look foreign to it—a look of anger and firmness combined; but she compressed her lips, as if to keep back words she would rather not utter, and then smiled once more.
“Ah, you may laugh, Miss Milly; but it’s nothing to laugh at. And there’s Mr Bayle, too. You’re having letters from he.”
Millicent’s face changed again; but she mastered her annoyance, and, laying her hand upon Thisbe’s shoulder, said with a smile:
“I don’t want to be angry with you, Thisbe, but you have grown into a terribly prejudiced woman.”
“Enough to make me, seeing what I do, Miss Milly.”
“Come, come, you must not talk like this.”
“Ah, now you’re beginning to coax again, as you always did when you wanted your own way; but it’s of no use, my dear, I don’t like him, and I never shall. I’d rather you’d marry old Sir Gordon; he is nice, though he do dye his hair. I don’t like him and there’s an end of it.”
“Nonsense, Thisbe!”