“Ye could not like me as well as ye like William Yorke? Is that it, child?”
Constance grew crimson. Like him as she liked William Yorke!
“Ye’re the nicest girl I have seen since Kathleen Blake,” resumed the straightforward, simple earl. “She promised to have me; she said she liked me grey hair better than brown, and me fifty years better than thirty, but, while I was putting the place a bit in order for her, she went and married a young Englishman. Did ye ever see him, Augusta?”—turning to his sister. “He is a baronet. He came somewhere from these parts.”
Lady Augusta intimated stiffly that she had not the honour of the baronet’s acquaintance. She thought her brother was making a simpleton of himself, and had a great mind to tell him so.
“And since Kathleen Blake went over to the enemy, I have not seen anybody that I’d care to look twice at, till I came here and saw you, Miss Constance,” resumed the earl. “And if ye can only get to overlook the natural impediments on me side, and not mind me being poor, I’d be delighted, me dear, if ye’d say the word.”
“You are very kind, very generous, Lord Carrick,” said Constance, with an impulse of feeling; “but I can only beg you never to ask me such a thing again.”
“Ah! well, child, I see ye’re in earnest,” good-naturedly responded the earl, as he gave it up. “I was afraid ye’d only laugh at me. I knew I was too old.”
And that was the beginning and the ending of Lord Carrick’s wooing. Scarcely worth recording, you will think. But there was a reason for doing so.