Agnes was inured to Miss Charity's adjectives, and even the fierce flush that accompanied some of them failed to alarm her.
"Well, I rather like him," she said, quietly.
"You can't like him, Agnes. It is not a matter of opinion at all; it's just simply a matter of fact—and you know that he is a most worldly, selfish, cruel, and I think, wicked young man, and you need not talk about him, for he's odious. And here comes Thomas Sedley again."
Agnes smiled a faint and bitter smile.
"And what do you think of him?" she asked.
"Thomas Sedley? Of course I like him; we all like him. Don't you?" answered Charity.
"Yes, pretty well—very well. I suppose he has faults, like other people. He's good-humoured, selfish, of course—I fancy they all are. And papa likes him, I think; but really, Charrie, if you want to know, I don't care if I never saw him again."
"Hush!"
"Well! You've got rid of the Verneys, and here I am again," said Tom, approaching. "They are going up to Hazelden to see your father."
And so they were—up that pretty walk that passes the mills and ascends steeply by the precipitous side of the wooded glen, so steep, that in two places you have to mount by rude flights of steps—a most sequestered glen, and utterly silent, except for the sound of the mill-stream tinkling and crooning through the rocks below, unseen through the dense boughs and stems of the wood beneath.