"Will you be seated?"
Betty sat down, her nervousness increasing.
Mrs. Hanson stared at the childish pretty face, it was the face of most perfect innocence, yet Mrs. Hanson looked with eyes of suspicion.
"The weather be holding up," she remarked, she was a woman who never came straight to the matter in hand, as Betty well knew.
"Grandmother 'ee sent for I?"
It was like carrying the war into the enemy's camp.
"True I did send for 'ee," Mrs. Hanson frowned.
"I hev had from young Mr. Allan Homewood an offer with which I be greatly surprised."
"From—from——" the colour deepened in the pretty cheeks, a fact that Mrs. Hanson's keen eyes did not miss.
"And why pray should 'ee blush at the mention of the gentleman's name."