"With Sir Victor—alone!"
"What did you talk about, Miss Darrell?"
"More than I care to repeat for your edification, Mr. Stuart. Have you any more questions to ask, pray?"
"One or two; did he ask you to marry him, Edith?"
"Ah, no!" Edith answers with a sigh that is genuine; "there is no such luck as that in store for Dithy Darrell. A baronet's bride—Lady Catheron! no, no—the cakes and ale of life are not for me."
"Would you marry him, if he did? Will you marry him when he does? for that is what it comes to, after all."
"Would I marry him?" She looks at him in real incredulous wonder. "Would I marry Sir Victor Catheron—I? My dear Charley, when you ask rational questions, I shall be happy to answer them, to the best of my ability, but not such absurdity as that."
"Then, you will?"
"Charley, don't be a tease—what do young persons of your juvenile years know about such things? I don't like the turn this conversation has taken; let us change it, let us talk about the weather—that's always a safe subject. Isn't it a splendid morning? Isn't it charming to have a perpetual fair wind? And how are you going to account for it, that the wind is always fair going to England, and always ahead coming out?
"'England, my country—great and free
Heart of the world—I leap to thee!'"