"What were you and Mr. Cheriton talking about so earnestly?" I asked, after Amabel had admired her present sufficiently. "You seemed very deeply absorbed, I thought."
Amabel blushed and looked down a moment. Then she raised her clear shining eyes to me.
"I suppose I had better tell you, though it may never come to any thing," said she. Then after another little pause in which I guessed well enough what was coming—"Mr. Cheriton asked me whether it would be agreeable to me, if he asked my father's permission to pay his addresses to me."
"Oh!" said I, considerably amused. "I suppose of course he would not pay them on any account without your father's consent?"
"Certainly not," answered Amabel, with such grave simplicity that I could not for very shame laugh at her. "That would not be right nor honorable."
"And you told him—"
"I told him that I was very young to think about such matters, but if his parents and mine saw no objection—" and here she made a pause and steadfastly studied the face of her new watch.
"And suppose your father does not consent, and even wished you to marry some one else," said I, rather cruelly, "what will you do then?"
"I will obey him so far as I can in conscience—at least till I am of age," she answered. "But there is no use in thinking about that."
"True," I answered. "'Sufficient unto the day is evil thereof.' Besides, I do not see why it is not a good match. Mr. Cheriton will have a good estate of his own, as I understand, besides being heir to Lord Carew, in Devonshire, if his poor son dies."