"I am only anxious for you, Henry. I wish you could have assured yourself that it would go well, before—before allowing your feelings to be irrevocably bound up in it. A blow, for you, might be hard to bear."
"How could I help my feelings?" retorted Henry. "I did not fix them purposely on Anna Lynn. Before I knew anything about it, they had fixed themselves. Almost before I knew that I cared for her, she was more to me than the sun in the heavens. There has been no help for it at all, I tell you. So don't preach."
"Have you spoken to her?"
Henry shook his head. "The time has not come for it. I must make it right with the master before I can stir a step: and I fear it is not quite ripe for that. Mind you don't talk."
William smiled. "I will mind."
"You'd better. If that Quaker society got a hint of it, there's no knowing what a hullabaloo they might make. They might be for reading Anna a public lecture at Meeting: or get Samuel Lynn to vow he'd not give his consent."
"I should argue in this way, were I you, Henry. With my love so firmly fixed on Anna Lynn——I beg your pardon, Miss Ashley."
William started up. Mary Ashley was standing close to the sofa. Had she caught the sense of the last words?
"Mamma spoke twice, but you were too busily engaged to hear," said Mary. "Henry, James is waiting to wheel your sofa to the tea-table."
Henry rose. Passing his arm through William's, he approached the group. The servant pushed the sofa after them. Standing together were Mary Ashley and Anna Lynn. They presented a great contrast to each other. Mary wore an evening dress of shimmering silk, its low body trimmed with rich white lace; white lace hung from its drooping sleeves: and she had on ornaments of gold. Anna was in grey merino, high in the neck, close at the wrists; not a bit of lace about her, not an ornament; nothing but a plain white linen collar. "Catch me letting her wear those Methodistical things when she shall be mine!" thought Henry. "I'll make a bonfire of the lot."