"But if we do not rob you," interrupts Elizabeth, looking at him in some surprise, "we rob Miss—Miss Wilson. What will she say to us?"
"She will be only too glad," replies he stiffly, a douche of cold water thrown on his foolish heart by the little hesitation which had preceded her pronunciation of Amelia's name, showing that her interest in him had not had keenness enough even to induce her to master his betrothed's appellation.
"Will she?" rejoins Elizabeth, quite ignorant of having given offence, and with her eyes fixed rather wistfully upon his. "How good of her! and how unlike most very happy people! Happy people are generally rather exacting; but she looks good. She has a dear face!"
He is silent. To hear the one woman's innocent and unconscious encomiums of the other fills him with an emotion that ties his never ready tongue. She mistakes the cause of his muteness.
"I am afraid I have vexed you," she says, sweetly and humbly. "I had no business to praise her to you; it was like praising a person to himself; but do not be angry with me—I did not mean to be impertinent!"
One small fragile hand is hanging over the arm of her hard lodging-house arm-chair, and before he has an idea of what his own intentions are, it is lying, without any asking of its consent, in his.
"I will not—I will not let you say such things," he says, trembling. "She is good: she has a dear face: and I love to hear you say so! May I—may I bring her to see you?"
As he makes this request, he feels the little fingers that are lying in his palm give a nervous start; and at once, quietly but determinedly, the captive hand is withdrawn. It and its fellow fly up to her face, and together quite cover it from his view. Though, as I have said, they are small, yet, it being small too to match them, they conceal it entirely.
"You will not say no?" he cries anxiously. "I am sure you will not say no. I shall feel very much snubbed if you do."
Still no answer. Still that shielded face, and the ominous silence behind it. He rises, a dark red spreading over his features.