‘Perhaps Nita will look out for some one, then, and do the courting for me,’ said John, drily. ‘I have no mind to begin it on my own account–and am not likely to find favour if I did.’
‘There you talk rubbish, despite that sage head of yours,’ replied his elderly friend. ‘Suppose you delegate the choice to my cousin; she has a wonderfully good opinion of you.’
John laughed aloud. ‘If her opinion of me is so high, it might be a dangerous thing to confide the choice to her,’ he remarked.
‘She might take a fancy to Abbot’s Knoll, and the master of it!’ exclaimed Mr. Bolton, highly delighted. ‘There is no accounting for the presumptuous fancies which enter a young man’s head. Here we are!’
They had gone in, little suspecting the scene which was even then coming to an end, and the rest of the evening had been passed as has been related.
Jerome naturally knew nothing of all this conversation. He went to the Abbey the following morning, and there was an unpleasantly-suggestive rhyme running in his head as he took his way there–that rhyme which gives the excellent advice:
‘Be sure you’re well off with the old love
Before you are on with the new.’
He found Nita at home, and alone–startled and surprised to see him; overwhelmed with confusion as the sight of him recalled the scene of last night.
Muttering some incoherent words she would have made her escape, but Jerome stopped her, and taking her hands, looked into her face with an expression of such intense gravity, even severity, that she gazed up at him spell-bound and fascinated.