"Say rather how selfish," replied Gilbert. "Do you think it is no happiness, in a foreign country, to find one circle at least where one is not a stranger?"
"Nay, Mr. Margrave," said Mrs. Montresor; "will you not call us a circle of friends?"
"But pray sit down," exclaimed Adelaide, pointing to a low chair near a stand of perfumed exotics in one of the windows, "sit down and tell us all your adventures by land and sea, especially the latter, and how you have survived the hair-breadth 'scapes and ventures of the briny Atlantic."
Gilbert Margrave told, in a few words, the particulars of his voyage, which had been a rapid and pleasant one; "so rapid a passage," he continued with a smile, "that I trust I am yet in time to assist at the wedding of Miss Horton and my old friend Mortimer Percy."
A shade of vexation crossed Adelaide's pretty face.
"I really do not see," she said, "why all the world should be in such a hurry for this marriage. There is surely time enough. One would think I was in danger of becoming an old maid, or else that everybody was desirous of getting rid of me."
"I do not think there is much fear of either contingency," replied Gilbert, laughing.
"The truth is, Mr. Margrave," said Mrs. Montresor, "that my dear Adelaide is a spoiled child, and because her cousin happens to be a very sensible, high-principled young man, but not exactly a hero of romance, she thinks herself called upon to affect a contempt for him. But I know her better than she knows herself, and I am certain that, at the bottom of her heart, she cherishes a very sincere affection for Mortimer."
"How can you know what's at the bottom of my heart, when I don't know myself, aunt Lucy?" exclaimed Adelaide, impatiently; "upon my word, I think no girl was ever so cruelly used as I have been. Other people make up a marriage for me, other people tell me whom I love, when I ought to know a deal better than they do. It's really shameful!"
If the real cause of Adelaide's indignation could have been known, it would have been discovered that her anger was not so much aroused against her aunt as against Gilbert Margrave, for the indifferent manner in which he had spoken of her approaching marriage.