‘It sounds rather dreadful, doesn’t it?’ asked Celia naïvely; ‘but, to tell you the truth, there’s nothing else that particularly interests me just now. I’ve had a young man on my mind for the last three days.’
Laura’s face grew graver. She sat looking at the fire for a minute or so in gloomy silence.
‘Mr. Gerard, I suppose?’ she said at last.
‘How did you guess?’
‘Very easily. There are only two eligible young men in Hazlehurst, and you have told me a hundred times that you don’t care about either of them. Mr. Gerard is the only stranger who has appeared at the Vicarage. You might easily arrange that as a syllogism.’
‘Laura, do you think I am the kind of girl to marry a poor man?’ asked Celia, with sudden intensity.
‘I think it is a thing you are very likely to do; because you have always protested most vehemently that nothing could induce you to do it,’ answered Laura, smiling at her friend’s earnestness.
‘Nothing could induce me,’ said Celia.
‘Really.’
‘Except being desperately in love with a pauper.’