“I hope she doesn’t,” rejoined William.
“And why so?” asked Aunt Dinah.
“Because, I’m perfectly certain he has not the least notion of ever asking her to marry him. He’s not thinking seriously about her, and never will,” replied he.
“Well, it’s nothing to vaunt of. You need not talk as if you wished her to be mortified,” said Aunt Dinah.
“I!—I wish no such thing, I assure you; but, even if she admires and adores the fellow all you say, still I can’t wish her his wife—because I’m sure he’s not the least worthy of her. I assure you he’s no better than a goose. You don’t know him—you can’t—as the fellows in the same school did—and Violet ought to do fifty times better.”
“You said he does not think seriously about her,” said Miss Perfect. “Remember, we are only talking, you and I together, and I assure you I never asked her whether she liked him or not, nor hinted a possibility of anything, as you say, serious coming of it; but what makes you think the young man disposed to trifle?”
“I didn’t say to trifle,” answered William; “but every fellow will go on like that where there’s a pretty girl, and no one supposes they mean anything. And from what he said to-day, I would gather that he’s thinking of some swell, whenever he marries, which he talks of like a thing so far away as to be nearly out of sight; in fact, nothing could be more contrary to any sign of there being any such notion in his head—and there isn’t. I assure you he has no more idea, at present, of marrying than I have.”
“H’m!” was the only sign of attention which Aunt Dinah emitted, with closed lips, as she looked gloomily into her work-basket, I believe for nothing.
William whistled “Rule Britannia,” in a low key, to the little oval portrait of the Very Rev. Simeon Lewis Perfect, Dean of Crutch Friars, the sainted and ascetic parent of the eccentric old lady, who was poking in her work-basket, his own maternal grandfather; and a silence ensued, and the conversation expired.
Next morning, William, returning from his early saunter in the fields, saw the graceful head of Violet peeping through the open window of the parlour, through the jessamine and roses that clustered round it. Her eyes glanced on him, and she smiled and nodded.