"Be very, very careful, sir! We're talking business now. There's another ordeal for you before you dare become sentimental."
"Then hasten; let us be after it."
"Things are in a serious predicament, I can tell you. I was frightened when I looked into that note-book,—I did n't like to do that, but I had to assist Providence a little. Five men have already got their quietus."
"Then why don't they clear out, and stop their nonsense?"
"Oh, it's their pride, I suppose; and every man probably thinks that when Cecilia has seen a little more of him in particular, in contrast with the others, he will win her favor. They 're afraid of one another, those men; that's the reason they've been herding together so close since that first day you came. Mr. Wiggins was taking it for granted that he was the whole thing—just like the man!—and those others forced him to join in some sort of arrangement by which they were to hang together. These calls in a bunch came from that, as though any one of them would n't take advantage of the others if he saw a chance! Some of this I got from Wiggy himself, the rest I just guessed."
"But you may not know that they sent a delegation after me into town, to warn me off the grass."
"That was Mr. Dick. He never saw me when Cecilia was around. And he was terribly snippy sometimes, and supercilious; but I'm going to get even with him. I've about underlined him for number six," she concluded, with the manner of a queen who, about to give her chief executioner his orders for the day, glances calmly over the list of victims.
"That's a good idea; Dick is insufferable; I hope you have n't counted wrong."
"As we were saying, about the note-book," she resumed, "the fifth man has already been respectfully declined. The dates of the proposals are written in the note-book; so I learned from the book that Mr. Ormsby, Mr. Arbuthnot, and Mr. Gorse had proposed on the steamer. Professor Hume, as you know, tried his luck at Hopefield; and Lord Arrowood must have stopped Cecilia as she was riding to the station on my bicycle yesterday morning. His goose is cooked."
"His gooseberry pie was cooked, but I took it away from him. No pie sacred to Hezekiah can be confiscated by an indigent lord so long as I keep my present health and spirits. It's the close season for lords in Westchester County; I potted the last one. By the way, he thought you were a real ghost when you were playing tag with him in the dark."