“You have been strangely misrepresented, then,” said the young lady, slily.
“So I have; and I do so wish you’d stop about that nonsense. You can’t conceive unless you knew the people⸺”
“I thought she was very pretty,” interrupted Miss Darkwell, innocently.
“So she is—perhaps—I dare say; but pretty or plain, as I said before, I’m not in love with her. I’m not in love, thank Heaven, with anyone, and I⸺”
“Come in to prayers, William, dear,” Aunt Dinah called aloud from the parlour door, “I’ve had breakfast early, expressly for you, and you must not delay it.”
CHAPTER LIII.
THE FLOWER
At breakfast the little party had a great deal to talk about, topics of hope, and topics of regret, glanced at in all sorts of spirits, sad and cheerful, black spirits and white, blue spirits and gray; but on the whole one would have said, looking on and a stranger to all that was possibly passing within, that it was a cheerful meal.