“Me! You mean Dine. You can’t mean me. I know it is Dine.”
“Oh, child,” laughing heartily, “why should I mean Dine? Why should it not be you?”
“It must be Dine,” she said positively. “Didn’t he say Dine?”
“Am I in my dotage?”
“Couldn’t you misunderstand?”
“No, I could not. What is the matter with you, to-night? You act as if you were bewildered.”
“So I am.”
“One evening, on the piazza, was it in May or June? I was not well and I said so to him; and he answered by telling me that he had always thought of you, that he had grown up hoping to marry you. Dine! Am I blind? Have I been blind these ten years?”
“Didn’t he say any thing about Dine?”
“We spoke of her, of course. I would not tell you, but I see how you are playing with him; he will not intrude himself. O, Tessa, for a bright girl, you are very stupid.”