“So I am, a clerk in holy orders; but not of the name of ‘Halls.’ That was your father’s mistake. I gave my true name; and here you see me very much at your service, ma’am. The uncle of a fine young fellow, whose name you never heard, I daresay. Have you ever happened to hear of a youth called Hilary Lorraine?”
“Oh, now I know why you are come! Oh dear! It was not for the fishing, after all! And perhaps you never fished before. And everything must be going wrong. And you are come to tell me what they think of me. And very likely you would be glad if you could put me in prison!”
“That would be nice gratitude; would it not? You are wrong in almost every point. It happens that I have fished before; and that I did come for the fishing partly. It happens that nothing is going wrong; and I am not come to say what they think of you; but to see what I think of you—which is a very different thing.”
“And what do you think of me?” asked Mabel, casting down her eyes, standing saucily, and yet with such a demure expression, that his first impulse was to kiss her.
“I think that you are rogue enough to turn the head of anybody. And I think that you are good enough to make him happy ever afterwards.”
“I am not at all sure of that,” she answered, raising her sweet eyes, and openly blushing; “I only know that I would try. But every one is not like a clergyman, to understand good stuffing. But if I had only known who you were, I would never have brought you any dinner, sir.”
“What a disloyal thing to say! Please to tell me why I ought to starve, for being Hilary’s uncle.”
“Because you would think that I wanted to coax you to—to be on my side, at least.”
“To make a goose of me, with your goose! Well, you have me at your mercy, Mabel. I shall congratulate Hilary on having won the heart of the loveliest, best, and cleverest girl in the county of Kent.”
“Oh no, sir, you must not say that, because I am nothing of the sort; and you must not laugh at me, like that. And how do you know that he has done it? And what will every one say, when they hear that he—that he would like to marry the daughter of a Grower?”