'Perhaps, mamma; but why?'
'They age the face so much by lining it.'
Eveline covered with her handkerchief her whole sweet face, which was quivering with emotion now. She felt that the romance of her young girl's life was quite passing from her, and that, even if she escaped a marriage with Sir Paget, she must think of Evan Cameron and his silent love no more!
'Think of Sir Paget's princely settlements,' said Lord Aberfeldie. 'But how difficult it is,' he added, as if to himself, 'to imbue a woman—a pretty girl more than all—with any idea of the seriousness of pounds, shillings, and pence! To her they are as the sands upon the seashore, unless she has known want.'
'Do reflect on all this, Eveline,' urged her mother.
'I cannot; and why should I do so?'
'Because most of the great evils of life might be avoided if we would only take time to reflect.'
'In a matter like this, mamma,' said Eveline, taking courage from her desperation, and hoping by temporising to gain, at least, time, 'reflection might lead to madness. Can wealth or princely settlements make up for that disparity of years which will excite ridicule in all the girls who know me, and cover me with contempt as a mean, sordid, and covetous creature in marrying a man I do not and can never love, and who cannot really care for me, whatever he may think or say? So, so, I am to be taken to market, as it were, and sold to the best advantage. That is the plain English of it!'
'Eveline, how can you adopt a tone so little like you?' said her mother, reproachfully. 'Sir Paget will be sure to address you on this subject, as he has your papa's permission, and, when he does so, be sure that you comport yourself as becomes my daughter,' she added, rather haughtily, and rather ignoring her husband in the matter. 'But go; I hear Olive and Miss Logan calling for you.'
Eveline hurried away, bathed her eyes, and then, hat in hand, descended from the terrace to the sunny lawn, where Olive, Ruby, and other girls were flitting about, radiant with smiles and in gaily-coloured costumes, with saucy and bewitching hats, talking and laughing merrily; but the girl felt as one in a dream, a nightmare. A dark cloud seemed to envelop her, amid which she heard the voices of her friends, and it may be imagined with what emotions in her breast she saw in the tennis-court opposite her, Cameron, looking so handsome in a kind of athlete's flannel dress, and the rotund figure of Sir Paget in a tight morning coat, out of the neck of which his round, shining head was jerked ever and anon in the turtle fashion we have described.