George Craik scowled at the fair one as he had scowled at Oholmondeley.
‘You heard that man Bradley, I suppose?’
‘Yes; I think that was his name. Do you know him, George?’
‘I know no good of him. I wish the roof had fallen in, and smashed him up. Talk about something else; and look here, don’t let me catch you going there again, or we shall quarrel. I won’t have any one I know going sneaking after that humbug.’
‘All right, Georgie dear,’ replied the damsel, smiling maliciously. ‘Then it’s true, I suppose, that he’s going to marry your cousin? I saw her sitting right under him, and thought her awfully pretty.’
‘You let her alone,’ grumbled George, ‘and mind your own affairs.’
‘Why don’t you marry her yourself, Géorgie?’ persisted his tormentor. ‘I hope what I have heard isn’t true?’
‘What have you heard?’
‘That she prefers the parson!’
The young man sprang up with an oath, and Miss Dottie burst into a peal of shrill laughter. He strode off into the garden, and she followed him. Coming into the full sunlight, she looked even more like plaster of Paris, or stucco, than in the subdued light of the chamber; her hair grew more strawlike, her eyes more colourless, her whole appearance more faded and jaded.