Theresa bit her pale lips to get a little colour in them. "A min whose brother was tried and condemned for wilful murder, and who died a convict striving to escape from his lawful fetters! He is no proper match for Lucy Cleeve."
"The man is dead, Theresa. His crimes and mistakes have died with him. Had he lived, the convict, we would have followed Lucy to the grave rather than allowed one of the Andinnian family to enter ours."
Theresa played with a tremendously big wooden cross of black wood, that she wore appended to a long necklace of black beads--the whole thing most incongruously unbecoming, and certainly not in the best of taste in any point of view. That she looked pale, vexed, disturbed, Colonel and Mrs. Cleeve saw: and they set it down in their honest and simple hearts to her anxiety for Lucy.
"Against Sir Karl Andinnian nothing can be urged, Theresa: and his brother, as I say, is dead," pursued the Colonel. "In himself he is everything that can be desired: a sweet-tempered, honourable gentleman. He is a baronet of the realm now, you know; and his proposed settlement on Lucy is good."
"I don't call him rich," doggedly returned Miss Blake. "Compare him with some baronets."
"And compare him, on the other hand, with others! His income averages about seven thousand a-year, I believe. Out of that he will accord his mother a good portion while she lives. Compare that with my income, Theresa--as we are on the subject of comparisons; I cannot count anything like two thousand."
"Are you sure that he is worthy of Lucy in other ways?" resumed Miss Blake, her tone unpleasantly significant. "I have heard tales of him."
"What tales?"
"Words dropped from the officers at Winchester. To the effect that he is wild."
"I can hardly believe that he is," said the Colonel, uneasily, after a pause. "I should dislike to give Lucy to any man of that kind."