I couldn't help remembering a certain scene in the library not many days ago, and giving him rather a wicked look, made him remember it too.
"I had nobody, however, you see, to make me stay in and by showing a little firmness at the risk of putting me in a bad temper, keep me from doing an imprudent thing."
"I should have supposed, sir, that Mrs. Roberts would have been in her element on such an occasion. I thought she always adopted the opposition ticket."
"By the way," he said, laughing, "how do you and Mrs. Roberts get on? You weren't very much charmed with her at first sight, were you?"
"I do not adore her yet, sir, but I don't think she's quite as dreadful as I did."
"You thought, poor child," he continued in the same tone, "that you were in a dreary prison. Absurd as it was, I could not help feeling dreadfully sorry for you; and ought to feel so yet, I suppose, only I've had no time lately to feel sorry for anybody but myself."
"Indeed, sir, I think you are the fittest subject," I said a little nettled. "I am as contented as possible, and shouldn't mind staying here a year."
"You like Rutledge, then?"
"Yes," I returned, "but I hardly dare say so, after the way in which Mrs. Roberts snapped me up about it the other night."
"How was that," he asked, with some curiosity.