Notwithstanding all her real, or pretended, aversion to matrimony, and love of that freedom which the demise of 'the late lamented Trelawney' seemed to have given her, the handsome widow, by more than one mutual invitation to her 'afternoon teas,' &c., unknown to Sir Ranald and Lord Cadbury, gave Bevil Goring an opportunity of meeting Alison Cheyne which he might not have otherwise enjoyed.
Alison had read of love and thought of it (as what young girl does not?), and Bevil Goring seemed to her the beau-ideal of all she had pictured in her imagination a lover or a husband ought to be. True it is, this idea might be born of his undoubted fancy for herself, and the impulsive nature of Alison forbade her to love or do anything else by halves.
Already she thought of him and spoke of him to herself as 'Bevil,' and then paused and blushed at the conviction that she did so. But then was not the name a quaint and strange one?
Dalton had called at Chilcote Grange and left his card; the widow was from home, and, as he did not leave the gift he had promised her little daughter, she smiled, as she well knew that he meant to call again.
'Laura,' said Alison, as she saw the card, 'I am certain that Captain Dalton admires you—Nay, loves you, from what Bevil, I mean Captain Goring, tells me. He talks of you incessantly.'
'Yet he has only seen me once or twice.'
'Quite enough to achieve that end.'
'How, child?'
'You are so very beautiful,' said Alison, patting the widow's cheek playfully.
'How strange that you should say so!'