CHAPTER XIV.

A SUNNY MORNING

“I suppose, if he likes her, there’s nothing to conceal in that?” challenged Miss Perfect.

“No, of course,” replied William, spiritedly; “I think she’s a thousand times too good for him, every way—that’s what I think; and I wonder, young as she is, Vi can be such a fool. What can she see in him? He has got two thousand a-year, and that’s all you can say for him.”

“I don’t know that—in fact, he strikes me as a very pretty young man, quite apart from his property,” said Aunt Dinah, resolutely; “and I could quite understand a young girl’s falling in love with him.”

William, leaning with his elbow on the chimney-piece, smiled a little bitterly, and said, quietly,

“I dare say.”

“I don’t say, mind, that she is. I don’t know the least, whether she cares twopence about him,” said Aunt Dinah.