“I hope that you never will grow up,” said Tessa, earnestly, “every thing is just as bad as you can dream.”
“Mr. Towne has given Sue coral ear-rings,” Dinah ran on. Tessa had gone down to her flower-bed to pull a few weeds that had pushed themselves in among her pansies. “He gave his mother several groups in stone for the dining-room; they are all funny, Sue says. In one, some children are playing doctor; in another, they are playing school. He gave his cousin a silk dress, and he bought himself a set of books for his birthday; he was thirty-two. Did you think he was so old?”
“Yes.”
“I say, Tessa, Sue thinks that she is going to marry him.”
“Does she?” The voice was away down in the flowers.
“You are always among those flowers. Don’t you wish that we had a conservatory? They have a grand one at Old Place. I wonder why they have so little company.”
“Mrs. Towne is feeble; she likes a quiet house.”
“Yes, Sue says that. But Grace Geer, his cousin, is there! Mrs. Towne is to give Old Place and all its treasures to Mr. Towne upon his wedding-day; she wants a daughter more than any thing, Sue says. I wish she would take me. Sue thinks that she will take her. Every other word that she speaks is ‘Mr. Ralph.’ She talks about him everywhere. Do you believe it?”
“Believe what?”
Tessa had returned to the piazza with a bunch of pansies.