“I don’t believe you allow things to be settled for you.”
“Oh yes; if they’re settled as I like them.”
“I shall settle this as I like it,” said Ralph. “It’s most unaccountable that we should never have known you.”
“I was there—you had only to come and see me.”
“There? Where do you mean?”
“In the United States: in New York and Albany and other American places.”
“I’ve been there—all over, but I never saw you. I can’t make it out.”
Miss Archer just hesitated. “It was because there had been some disagreement between your mother and my father, after my mother’s death, which took place when I was a child. In consequence of it we never expected to see you.”
“Ah, but I don’t embrace all my mother’s quarrels—heaven forbid!” the young man cried. “You’ve lately lost your father?” he went on more gravely.
“Yes; more than a year ago. After that my aunt was very kind to me; she came to see me and proposed that I should come with her to Europe.”