Her pale-blue eyes sparkled with fury as she read the tender love letter Norman Wylde had written to Pansy.
“She shall never be his wife if I can prevent it!” she vowed bitterly.
The impatient lover waited in vain for a reply to his letter, for Pansy did not come down that evening, and when he arose, very early the next morning, he learned, to his dismay, that Farmer Robbins had taken his niece away on the midnight train.
He went impatiently to Mrs. Robbins, and she told him, in her cool, straightforward way, that Mr. Robbins had taken Pansy away because he did not approve of her flirting with young men.
“But, my dear madam, my intentions were strictly honorable. I wished to marry Pansy,” he expostulated.
“You are engaged to Miss Ives, ain’t you?” she returned curtly.
“I was, but I am no longer. I broke off with her that I might ask Pansy Laurens to marry me.”
He seemed so manly and straightforward that Mrs. Robbins must have been forced to believe in his sincerity had not her mind been poisoned beforehand by the slanders of Mrs. Ives. But the poison had done its work, and she looked on him as a liar and a libertine. So she answered curtly again:
“Rich young men like you, Mr. Wylde, don’t marry poor working geerls like little Pansy Laurens. I’ve heerd all about your character from Mrs. Ives, sir, and I know you didn’t mean any good to Pansy, so her uncle up and took her away out o’ harm’s reach.”
His black eyes flashed with anger.