She had risen as she talked and stood before him, her cheeks flushed, her eyes unnaturally bright, and her head thrown back, so that she seemed taller than she really was. Lawyer Russell had always liked Rossie very much, and since that little business matter touching the receipt, he had felt increased respect and admiration for her, for he was certain she had helped Everard out of some one of the many scrapes he used in those days to be in. Looking at her now he thought what a fine-looking girl she was growing to be, and started suddenly as he saw a way out of the difficulty, but such a way that he hesitated a moment before suggesting it. Taking off his glasses, and wiping them with his handkerchief, he coughed two or three times and then said:
“How old are you, Rossie?”
“Fifteen last June,” was her reply, and he continued:
“Then you are almost fifteen and a half, and pretty well grown. Yes, it might do; there have been queerer things than that.”
“Queerer things than what?” Rossie asked, and he replied:
“Than what I am going to suggest. There is a way by which Everard can use that money if he will.”
“What is it? Tell me,” she exclaimed, her face all aglow with excitement.
“He could marry you, and then what was yours might be his.”
The lawyer had thrown the bombshell and waited for the explosion, but there was none. Rossie’s face was just as bright and eager, and showed not the slightest consciousness or shrinking back from a proposition which would have covered some girls with blushes and confusion. But Rossie was a simple-hearted girl, who, never having associated much with companions of her own age, had never had her mind filled with lovers and matrimony, and when the lawyer proposed her marrying Everard she looked upon it purely as a business transaction,—a means of giving him his own; love had nothing to do with it, nor did it for a moment occur to her that there would be anything out of the way in such an act. She should not live with him, of course; that would be impossible. She should simply marry him, and then leave him to the enjoyment of her fortune, and her first question to the lawyer was:
“Do you think he would have me?”