"Oh, I dare say not. I'm nobody beside Miss Natty! So, when Captain Cavendish came up and asked leave to see me home, I just let him! I thought it wouldn't do you any harm to be a little jealous, you know, Charley."
Charley's hopes were high again; but his heart had been too deeply pained for him to forget its soreness at one encouraging word. Something wanting in Cherrie, he could not quite define what, had often struck him before, but never so palpably as now. That want was principle, of which the black-eyed young lady was totally devoid; and he was vaguely realizing that trusting to her was much like leaning on a broken reed.
Cherrie, a good deal piqued, and a little alarmed by his silence, looked at him askance.
"Oh, you're sulky, are you? Very well, sir, you can just please yourself. If you've a mind to get mad for nothing, you may."
"Cherrie," Charley said, quite gravely for him, "do you think you did right last night? After promising to be my wife, to go off and leave me as you did?"
"I didn't, either!" retorted Cherrie; "it was you went off and left me."
"That was no fault of mine, and I didn't go with another young lady. Cherrie, I want you to promise me you will let Captain Cavendish see you home no more."
"I shall promise nothing of the sort!" cried Cherrie, with shrill indignation. "Because I promised to marry you, I suppose you would like me to live like a nun for the rest of my life, and not even look at any other man. I'll just do as I did before, Mr. Charley Marsh; and if you ain't satisfied with that, you may go and marry somebody else—Miss Rose, or Miss Clowrie—she'd have you, fast enough!"
"I don't want Miss Clowrie; I only want you, Cherrie; and if you cared for me, you wouldn't act and talk as you do."
Some of poor Charley's pain was in his voice and it touched the coquette's frivolous heart. She stopped, at a dry-goods store, for an encouraging word before entering.