"Are you going out?" asked Mrs. Carleton, drawing her shawl more closely around her slender and stately form.
"I am going with Sir Isaac," replied Georgina: and Mrs. Carleton made an almost imperceptible pause before she spoke again.
"I am going with Sir Isaac."
"That I'm sure you are not," cried Georgina, in her spoilt, girlish way. "Sir Isaac is going to Hatherton, and knows why I must go there with him: why he must take me in preference to any one else. Don't you, Sir Isaac?" she added, entwining her arm within his.
"You petted child!" he fondly said. "Who told you I was going to Hatherton?"
"Brumm. I asked him what the pony-carriage had come round for this morning. You will take me?" she continued, her voice and manner irresistible in their sweetness.
"I suppose I must," he answered. "If Mrs. Carleton will allow me--will excuse the trouble she has had in putting on her things. There! put on your bonnet, my wilful, troublesome child; you would charm a bird from its nest."
That any feeling of rivalry could be entertained by either, never once crossed the brain of Sir Isaac St. John. He had watched Georgina Beauclerc grow up from a baby, and he looked upon her still as a child: he gave way to her moods as we give way to those of a child who is very dear to us. He loved her fondly; he would have liked her for his daughter: and since the project of marrying Frederick to Lady Anne St. John had failed, he had cherished a secret and silent wish down deep in his heart, that Lady Anne might be supplanted by the dean's daughter. But he was cautious not to breathe a hint of this, not to further it by so much as lifting a finger. If it came to pass, well and good, but he would never again plot and plan, and be made miserable by failure, as he had been in the case of Lady Anne. That Mrs. Carleton could be seriously annoyed at his disappointing her for Georgina, did not occur to him: it never would have occurred to him that she could look on the young lady as anything but a lovable and loving child.
They went out to the pony-carriage, Georgina on his arm and prattling in her pretty way. Sir Isaac placed her in, solicitous for her comfort, and took his seat beside her. Her bright face and its sparkling grey eyes were beaming with triumph, and she turned back with a saucy farewell.
"Don't expect us home until you see us."