Mrs. Rolleston took refuge in the ill-assumed dignity of rising anger.
"I suppose, mamma, he is very well off? Papa often wonders that he goes soldiering on."
"Really, Cecil, whatever your speculations may be, it was not a delicate act, sitting apart with him for half-an-hour in a dark arbour."
"I thought he might propose,"—Mrs. Rolleston's face expressed, "Are you mad?"—"or give me a chance somehow of saying what I wanted to. And what's more," she continued, "I am not certain whether he meant to, or not. To be sure, I didn't give him much time."
"Did you, propose, then? Cecil, if you don't wish me to disbelieve my own senses, tell me at once what you were about in the summer-house."
"Refusing eight thousand a year," was the short reply.
A puzzled, not unpleased expression, was dawning. "I thought you said he did not propose?"
"Well, no; honestly, he didn't. We had a little conversation, and the upshot was, he has promised to go to England for six months."
Mrs. Rolleston was not a proud woman, and the relief was so great, that she folded Cecil in a silent embrace.
"Perhaps, mamma," continued the girl, demurely, "you won't think it necessary to mention this to papa. It wouldn't be fair to betray Major Fane!"