"I am not dying of love for him, you strange child."
"One day a poor boy had a monkey before the window, and you said Mr. Edwin Barley was as ugly as that. Is he ugly?"
Selina burst into a peal of ringing laughter. "Oh, he is very handsome, Anne; as handsome as the day: when you see him you shall tell me if you don't think so. I—— What is the matter? What are you looking at?"
As I stood before my aunt, the door behind her seemed to be pushed gently open. I had thought some one was coming in; and said so.
"The fire-light must have deceived you, Anne. That door is kept bolted; it leads to a passage communicating with my bedroom, but we do not use it."
"I am certain that I saw it open," was my answer; and an unpleasant, fanciful thought came over me that it might be the man I saw in the avenue. "It is shut now; it shut again when I spoke."
She rose, walked to the door, and tried to open it but it was fast.
"You see, Anne. Don't you get fanciful, my dear; that is what your mamma was:" but I shook my head in answer.
"Selina, did not Mr. Edwin Barley want me to go to Mrs. Hemson's instead of coming here?"
"Who told you that?"