"Answer me one plain question, Henry. Do you still indulge a hope towards Anna Lynn?—to her becoming your wife?"
With a shriek of anger, Henry caught up his slipper, and sent it flying through the air at William's head.
"What's that for?" equably demanded William, dodging his head out of the way.
"How dare you hint at such a thing? I told you there were some things I wouldn't stand. Is it fitting that one who has figured in such an escapade should be made the wife of an Ashley? If we were left by our two selves upon the earth, all else gone dead and out of it, I wouldn't marry her."
"Precisely so. I have judged you rightly. Then, under this state of things, what in the name of fortune is the use of your lying here and thinking about her?"
"I don't think about her," fractiously returned Henry. "You are always fancying things."
"You do think about her. I can see that you do. I should be above it," quaintly continued William.
"Go and pick up my slipper."
"Will you come down to tea this evening?"
"No, I won't. You come here and preach up this morality, or divinity, or whatever you may please to term it, to me; but, wait and see how you'd act, if you should ever get struck on the keen edge as I have been."