"You are quite mistaken," she said, with dignity. "Time will show that I am right. Unless I leave Sleeping Water at once, I feel that I shall go into a decline."
"May I ask whether you think it a good plan to leave a place immediately upon matters going wrong with one living in it?"
"It would be for me," she said, decidedly.
"Then, mademoiselle, you will never find rest for the sole of your foot."
"I am tired of Sleeping Water," she said, excitedly quitting the hammock, and looking as if she were about to leave him. "I wish to get out in the world to do something. This life is unendurable."
"Bidiane,—dear Bidiane,—you will not leave us?"
"Yes, I will," she said, decidedly; "you are not willing for me to have my own way in one single thing. You are not in the least like Mr. Nimmo," and holding her head well in the air, she walked towards the house.
"Not like Mr. Nimmo," said Agapit, with a darkening brow. "Dear little fool, one would think you had never felt that iron hand in the velvet glove. Because I am more rash and loud-spoken, you misjudge me. You are so young, so foolish, so adorable, so surprised, so intoxicated with what I have said, that you are beside yourself. I am not discouraged, oh, no," and, with a sudden hopeful smile overspreading his face, he was about to spring into his buggy and drive away, when Bidiane came sauntering back to him.
"I am forgetting the duties of hospitality," she said, stiffly. "Will you not come into the house and have something to eat or drink after your long drive?"