"Heard and not seen," puts in Tommy, rapidly; "you always say that, grandma."
Vera laughs softly. Mrs. Daintree goes on with her lecture.
"Many girls in your position are very accomplished; can teach the piano, and history, and the elements of Latin; but it seems to me you have been brought up in idleness."
"Idleness is not to be despised in its way," answers Vera, composedly. "Another bit of ivy, Tommy. What shall I do, Mrs. Daintree?" she continues, whilst her deft fingers wind the trailing greenery round and round the glass stem of the vase. "Shall I go down to the village school and sit at the feet of Mr. Dee? I have no doubt he could teach me a great many things I know nothing about."
"That is nonsense; of course I don't mean that you can educate yourself to any purpose now; it is too late for that; but you need not, at all events, turn up your nose at the blessings that Providence sets before you; and I must say, that for a young woman deliberately to choose to remain a burden upon her friends, betokens an amount of servility and a lack of the spirit of independence which I should not have supposed possible even in you!"
"What do you want me to do?" said Vera, without a sign of impatience. "Shall I walk over to Tripton this afternoon, and make a low curtsey to Mr. Gisburne, and say to him very politely, 'Here is an idle and penniless young woman who would be very pleased to stop here and marry you!' Would that be the way to do it, Mrs. Daintree?"
"No, no, no!" imperatively from Tommy, who was listening with rapidly crimsoning cheeks; "you shall not go and stop at Tripton, and tell Mr. Gisburne you will marry him!"
Vera laughed. "No, Tommy, I don't think I will; not, that is to say, if you are a good boy. I think I can do something better than that with myself!" she added, softly, as if to herself. Mrs. Daintree caught the words.
"And what better, pray? What better chance are you ever likely to have? Let me tell you, bachelors who want penniless wives don't grow on the blackberry bushes down here! If you were not so selfish and so conceited, you would see where your duty to my son, who is supporting you, lay. You would see that to be married to an honest, upright man like Albert Gisburne is a chance that most girls would catch at only too thankfully."
The old lady had raised her voice; she spoke loud and angrily; she was rapidly working herself into a passion. Tommy, accustomed to family rows, stood on the hearthrug, looking excitedly from his grandmother to his aunt. He was a precocious child; he did not quite understand, and yet he understood partly. He knew that his grandmother was scolding Vera, and telling her she was to go away and marry Mr. Gisburne. That Vera should go away! That, in itself, was sufficiently awful. Tommy adored Vera with all the intensity of his childish soul; that she should go away from him to Mr. Gisburne seemed to him the most terrible visitation that could possibly happen. His little heart swelled within him; the tears were very near his eyes.