“Bless you for those words!” said Winthrop, devoutly. “That infernal medicine has been the one fly in my ointment, the single crumbled leaf in my bed of roses. Hereafter I shall be perfectly happy. That is, if I survive the day. I fancy your cousin may call me out before he leaves and put a bullet into me.”
“Why?” asked Holly, innocently.
“Jealousy, my dear young lady. Haven’t I carried you off from under his nose?”
“I don’t reckon I’d have gone if I hadn’t wanted to,” said Holly, with immense dignity.
“That makes it all the worse, don’t you see? He is convinced by this time that I have designs on you and looks upon me as a hated rival. I can feel his eyes boring gimlet-holes in my back this moment.”
“It will do him good,” said Holly, with a little toss of her head.
“That’s what I thought,” said Winthrop. “But I doubt if he is capable of taking the same sensible view of it.”
“I’m afraid you don’t like him,” said Holly, regretfully.
“My dear Miss Holly,” he expostulated, “he doesn’t give me a chance. I am as dirt under his feet. I think I might like him if he’d give me chance. He’s as handsome a youngster as I’ve ever seen, and I fancy I can trace a strong resemblance between him and the portrait of your father in the parlor; the eyes are very like.”
“Others have said that,” answered Holly, “but I never could see the resemblance; I wish I could.”