“Winnie!” he cried, startled, standing still and drawing her suddenly in front of him so that he could look into her face.
“Oh, Edward, don’t add to my troubles; I don’t see how it is ever to begin. My father means to put me in Tom’s place, as he put Tom in George’s place, and already he has said”—
“What has he said?”
“Perhaps it means nothing,” she went on after a pause; “I should have kept it to myself.”
“Winnie, that is worse than anything he can have said. What he says I can bear, but not that you should keep anything to yourself.”
“It was not much. It was a sort of a threat. He said the match that was good enough for Winnie might not be good enough for”—
“His heiress. He is right enough,” young Langton said.
At this, Winifred, who had been anticipating in her own mind all that was involved, trembled as if it had never occurred to her before, and turned upon him with an air, and indeed with the most real sentiment of grieved surprise.
“Right?” she said, with wonder and reproach in her voice.
“A country doctor,” said the young man, “a fellow with nothing, is not a match for the heiress of Bedloe. He is right enough. We cannot contradict him. You ought to make an alliance like a princess with some one like yourself.”