“But it may turn out very happy, or very splendid, you know; he may meet with a young lady more foolish than himself, and with a great dot.”
“No, my dear, he’s a soft, romantic goose, and I really think if it were not imprudent, the romance would lose all its attraction. I tell you, it runs in the family, and he’s not a bit wiser than his father, or his grandfather before him.”
“This will never do without a bit of blue. May I run out to the flowers?”
“Certainly, dear;” and Aunt Dinah peered through her spectacles at the half made-up bouquet in the glass.
“Yes, it does—it wants blue. Isn’t there blue verbena?”
And away ran Violet, and her pretty figure and gay face flitted before the windows in the early sun among the flowers. And Aunt Dinah looked for a moment with a smile and a sigh. Perhaps she was thinking of the time when it was morning sun and opening flowers for her, and young fellows—one of whom, long dead in India, was still a dream for her—used to talk their foolish flatteries, that sounded like muffled music in the distant air; and she looked down dreamily on the back of her slim wrinkled hand that lay on the table.
CHAPTER XXV.
W. MAUBRAY ARRIVES