'Won't I have the right to forbid you?'
'A right I shall not recognise. You surely would not be jealous of me?'
'Of you—no; but of others—a humiliating confession, is it not?' he added, smiling tenderly down upon her.
Though it was all a hastily got up and impromptu affair, Maude and Annot were radiantly happy; the latter in securing such a lover as Roland Lindsay, with all his surroundings, which she appreciated highly, as they far exceeded the most brilliant hopes and aspirations of herself and her match-making mother in South Belgravia. Her soft cheeks flushed and paled, and her tiny feet—for tiny they were as those of Cinderella—beat responsive to the music; and in the fulness of her own joy even her original emotions of covetousness, and ambition perhaps, were dimmed or lessened; while the dances which she had with Roland seemed quite unlike those she had enjoyed with other men; even when Hawkey Sharpe, who, being a Scotchman, danced of course, ploughing away with the minister's good-natured daughter, cannoned with some violence against them, and made Roland frown and mutter under his moustache till he drew Annot into the recess of a window, and while fanning her, and in doing so lightly ruffling Her shining hair, talked that soft nonsense so dear to them then.
'How childlike you are, Annot, in the brightness of your joy and in your genuine love of amusement!' said he admiringly, as he stooped over her.
'I feel as light as a bird when I hear good dance music like that and have such a good partner as you, Roland,' she exclaimed, looking up, her green hazel eyes beaming with pleasure.
'How could it be otherwise,' said he, 'when,
"My love she's but a lassie yet,
A lightsome, lovely lassie yet."
a sweet one that never had even a passing penchant, I am sure, or perhaps a flirtation!'
'Yet having a very decided tendency thereto.' replied Annot, with one of her arch smiles. 'But nothing more, dear Roland, nothing more!' she added, perfectly oblivious of poor Bob Hoyle and many other 'detrimentals,' as Mamma Drummond called them.