'I 'm not. I know what I 'm about!'
'Then you surely do not dare to tell me to my face that your cousin did right in frightening me so terribly?'
'I 'm not saying anything so silly. I know too well the kind you are made of, Leuchy Villiers. Hollyhock did wrong, and Meg did, to my thinking, a sight worse.'
'Meg was really noble,' said Leucha.
'If that's your idea of nobleness, keep it and treasure it all your life.'
'Meg had to save her soul,' said Leucha.
'Oh, my word!' cried Jasper; 'and is our darling Hollyhock's soul of no account?'
'Well, she thinks nothing of the freak which nearly killed me.'
'Nothing of it? Little you know! Do you forget she sat up with you resting against her breast the whole of the first night, and had a camp-bed put into your room by doctor's orders and your own wish, and sang you to sleep with that voice of hers that would melt the heart of a stone, no less? If she loved you? But it has not melted your heart. If she was what you think her to be, would she have troubled herself as she did about you? Would she give up her sport and her fun and her joy, her pleasures, for one like you?'
'I 'm the daughter of the Earl of Crossways,' said Leucha.