"That is a very bad habit, particularly for a young girl like you."
"I do not quite see how young girls can help thinking sometimes any more than old ones," answered Dolly, but there was no flippancy in her tone, if there were in her words. "Aunty, Mr. Mortomley—that gentleman I have told you of, who is so much at the Vicarage and Dassell Court—has asked me to marry him."
"Asked you to marry him, child?"
"Yes."
"And what did you say?"
"What could I say, aunt? He is coming to see you about it to-morrow."
Miss Celia arose from her easy-chair. Perhaps out of the midst of the cloud of years that had gathered behind her there arose the ghost of an old love-dream, never laid—never likely to be laid. At all events her usually shrill voice was modulated to an almost tender key, as, drawing Dolly towards her, she asked,
"Do you love him, Dolly?"
"What should I know about love, aunty?" inquired Dolly; and at that answer the elder woman's embrace relaxed. Here was no sentimental Miss such as she herself had been in her teens, but a girl lacking something as every one felt—who in some way or other was not as other human beings—who even in those remote wilds was able to behold a personable man and not go crazy about him on the instant.
Clearly there was a want in Dolly. Miss Gerace could not imagine what that want might be, but that it existed she entertained not the smallest manner of doubt.