"What was she doing at the house if not invited!"
"How should I know? Cherrie is everywhere—she knows the servants, I suppose."
"Oh, is that it? Then she is nobody."
"I wish she heard you! If ever any one thought themselves somebody it's the same Miss Cherrie. She aspires to be a lady—bless your heart!—and that foolish boy is to be entrapped into marrying her."
Val stopped to knock the ashes off his cigar.
"Well; and what then?" asked the captain.
"Why, Natty will go frantic, that is all. She thinks the Princess Royal not half good enough for Charley."
"Is Miss Cherrie's position in life so low, then?"
"It's not that. Her father is a gardener, a poor man, but honest and respectable enough. It's Cherrie herself; she's a shallow, vain, silly little beauty, as ever made fools of men, and her vanity, and her idleness, and her dress, and her flirtations are the scandal of the town. Not that anything worse can be said of little Cherrie, mind; but she is not the girl for Charley Marsh to marry."
"Charley is a gentleman; perhaps he isn't going to marry her," suggested Captain Cavendish, with a light laugh, that told more of his character than folios could have done.