"But aunty," said Eva, who had been coloring with vexation, "this is all gratuitous—you are all engaging and marrying me in spite of my screams as appears. I am not engaged to Mr. Sidney, and never expect to be; he is gone off on a long Southern tour, and I hope out of sight will be out of mind, and people will stop talking."
"But my dear Eva, really now you ought not to treat a nice man like him in that way."
"Treat him in what way?" said Eva.
"Why, keep him along in this undecided manner without giving him a definite answer."
"He might have had a definite answer any time in the last three months if he had asked for it. It isn't my business to speak till I'm spoken to."
"You don't mean, Eva, that he has gone off without saying anything definite—bringing matters to a point."
"I do mean just that, Aunty, and what's more I'm glad he's gone, and I hope before he comes back he'll see somebody that he likes better, and then it'll be all off; and, Aunty, if any one speaks to you about it you'll oblige me by saying decidedly there is nothing in it."
"Well, I shan't say there never has been anything in it. I shall say you refused him."
"And why so? I am not anxious to have the credit of it, and besides I think it is indelicate when a man has paid a lady the highest possible compliment he can pay, to make a public parade of it. Its sufficient to say there is nothing in it and never will be; its nobody's business how it happened."
"Oh, come Eva, don't say there never will be anything in it. That is a subject on which girls are licensed to change their minds."