He rubbed his brown eyes and looked around him in a puzzled way and said aloud:
“I thought darling Robina had been turned into an angel and that she had come to kiss me, and help me to become an angel too.”
As he uttered the words, there was Harriet in the room; she had come to dress him; although this was an office she need not have taken upon herself; but it was her object to be exceedingly petting to Ralph on this all-important occasion.
“What are you muttering to yourself?” she said.
“I thought darling Robina was in the room, and that she was turned into an angel,” said Ralph. He looked in a puzzled way at Harriet. “Will you ever be turned into an angel, Harriet?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” said Harriet. She spoke crossly. “I have enough to do to keep myself a good girl down in this world, without worrying myself about angels,” she continued.
“Oh, yes!” said Ralph, in a sad little whisper. “Darling Robina.”
“Why do you talk of her like that?” said Harriet, rather frightened at his tone. “It is me you love best, isn’t it?”
“’Course,” said Ralph, a little wearily; “only,” he added, “I don’t see why I am to be saying it every minute. I love Robina too,—awful much!”
After this speech, which was uttered with such heart fervour that Harriet must have been a great fool if she did not guess the real state of Ralph’s heart, the process of dressing became—to say the least of it—contrary.