“Very pretty Miss Darkwell is. I quite envy you. Your cousin, isn’t she?” said Trevor, graciously. He felt that William would be flattered by the envy, even playful, of Vane Trevor, Esq., of Revington.
“Cousin, or something, someway or other connected or related, I don’t know exactly. Yes, I believe she is very well. She was prettier as a child, though. Isn’t there a short way to the Warren?”
“Yes, I’ll take you right. She looks, I’d say, about seventeen.”
“Yes, I dare say,” answered William. “Do you know those Miss Mainwarings—Doctor Mainwaring’s daughters?”
But it would not do. Vane Trevor would go on talking of Violet Darkwell, in spite of William’s dry answers and repeated divergences, unaccountably to that philosophical young gentleman’s annoyance.
CHAPTER XIII.
UNSOCIABLE.
At dinner, in the parlour of Gilroyd Hall, there was silence for some time. William looked a little gloomy, Violet rather fierce and stately, and Aunt Dinah eyed her two guests covertly, without remark, but curiously. At last she said to William—