“I say, George,” said Margetts, “shouldn’t you like to see the courtship?”
“Well,” answered Rivers with a smile, “I must say I should. But of course that is impossible.”
“No, it is not,” rejoined the other. “Look here: the big dresser runs right through the wall, and there is a cupboard behind that communicates with it, through the cracks in the door you can see everything that passes.”
“Wouldn’t Thyrza dislike it?” suggested George.
“No. I’ll be bound she would be as much amused as we are. It isn’t as though she cared a straw for him.”
“Well, that is not unlikely,” rejoined Rivers. “Come along then. I must own I am curious to see it.”
“Creep in here,” said Margetts, opening a door in the wall, “and mind you don’t make any noise. There are some holes in the dresser through which we shall be able to see.”
Almost as he spoke, the door of the parlour opened, and Thyrza was seen standing on the threshold, with the bit of candle in one hand and a match-box in the other. She proceeded to light the former, and placed it in an empty candlestick on the table, and then seated herself—not, as her swain had probably hoped, on the large heavy, wooden-legged sofa which ran along one side of the table, but in the large arm-chair, usually occupied by her mother.
Rudolf, though somewhat disappointed at the position thus taken up, glanced, nevertheless, with approbation at the bit of candle provided, which, in his view of the matter, intimated that the lady was not disposed to abridge the length of the interview. He seated himself in a chair, as near as he could contrive to his inamorata, and looked admiringly at her.