"I have no liking," she said, in the same bantering manner he had assumed at first, "for those who so readily change the color of the coat they are in honor bound to wear."
"It was not an easy thing to contemplate until I met you," he replied bluntly, and looking at her as if hoping for some approval of his confession.
This he failed to obtain, for Dorothy only smiled incredulously as she asked, "Is it kind, think you, to credit me with so pernicious an influence over His Majesty's officers?"
"I credit you only with all that is sweetest and best in a woman," he said with quick impulsiveness. And coming still nearer to her, he dropped the flowers and seized one of her hands, while the basket fell to the ground between them.
"'T is small matter what you may or may not credit me with," she answered, with a petulant toss of her head. "Leave go my hand this minute, sir! See, you have made me drop my basket; let me pick it up, and go my way."
A sudden, curious glance now flashed from his eyes, and looking sharply into her face, he said, "I thought that perhaps you would like me to go with you, so that you might shut me up again in your father's sheep-house."
Dorothy ceased her efforts to withdraw her hands—for he now held both of them—from his clasp, and stared up at him in affright.
"Who told you I did?" she gasped. "Who said so?"
The young man threw back his head and laughed exultingly.
"Aha,—and so it was really you, you sweet little rebel! I was almost certain of it, the morning I spoke to your father of the matter, and saw the look that came into your eyes."