“I do not like Mr. Plowden.”
“Really, Eva, you are too bad. You know what a friendless position we are in just now, and you go and get up a dislike to one of the few men we know. It is very selfish of you, and most unreasonable.”
At that moment the front-door bell rang, and Eva fled.
Mr. Plowden on entering looked round the room with a somewhat disappointed air.
“If you are looking for my sister,” said Florence, “she is not very well.”
“Indeed, I am afraid that her health is not good; she is so often indisposed.”
Florence smiled, and they dropped into the district-visiting. Presently, however, Florence dropped out again.
“By the way, Mr. Plowden, I want to tell you of something I heard the other day, and which concerns you. Indeed, I think that it is only right that I should do so. I heard that you were seen talking to my sister, not very far from the Titheburgh Abbey cottages, and that she—she ran away from you. Then Mr. Jones jumped over the wall, and also began to talk with you. Presently he also turned, and, so said my informant, you struck at him with a heavy stick, but missed him. Thereupon a tussle ensued, and you got the worst of it.”
“He irritated me beyond all endurance,” broke in Mr. Plowden, excitedly.
“O, then the story is true?”