“Oh, be quiet, Eddy! and if your aunt Sarah doesn’t die?”
“Ah, there you pose me, May. I must either go back where the bad boys go, to town, and sink or swim as I can, and farewell to my pretty Marion; or else I must go and ranch, or whatever you call it, as your father says.”
“It is strange,” said Marion very seriously, “that old people should make such a point of going on living, when there are young ones that want their money so very much—and when they know they have had their day.”
“One may say it is inconsiderate,” said Eddy with a twinkle in his eye, “but then the thing is, why should she take all that trouble for us? I am sure we would take none for her: and here we are just back again, Marion, where the four roads meet—Gilston or California, the ranch or the—devil: that’s about what it is.”
“You had, perhaps, better go to the ranch, Eddy.”
“And you’ll wait for me, May!”
“Perhaps,” said the girl, with tears which were honest enough, in her eyes. “If I don’t see somebody I like better,” she added with a laugh.
“Most likely,” said Eddy philosophically, “I shall break my neck the first year—and then you need not hold to your promise. But don’t marry any one under the rank of a marquis, for my credit, if you love me, May.”
“Oh, we’ll see about that,” Marion said.
It was after she had come in from this conversation, and had thought it all over in her own room, and made several calculations, that Marion walked very sedately downstairs, and knocked at her father’s door. She was slightly disconcerted when she saw that Mrs. Rowland was with him, but, having quite distinctly made up her mind what she was going to do, her confusion was slight and soon passed away. She did not sit down, but stood by the writing table at which he was seated, leaning her hand upon it, which was a token that she meant business, and did not intend to waste words.