Crash! Dorothy had dropped the paperweight with which she was playing. He let her stoop to pick it up, which she did clumsily, and was long about it, and then he went on. "I have had three proposals for your hand, my dear. I do not know that this embarras de richesses is altogether to your credit, but so it is. Three of your fellow-culprits of yesterday, Philip Emerson, Mr. Bigham, and Mr. Brune are anxious to press their suits. They all have some means, and are young men of whom, notwithstanding that little affair, I can approve."
She was drawing outlines on her work-table with one white forefinger. "I don't think I want to marry either of them," she murmured with much indifference, considering the effect of an imaginary landscape with her head on one side.
The Archdeacon frowned. "They think that you have given them reason to hope."
"They cannot all think that!" she retorted, pouting scornfully. And the worst of it was that he could not controvert this.
"Philip Emerson, Dorothy, seemed in particular to fancy he had received some encouragement."
"Oh," said Dolly, "I should like to ask him what he meant; I don't think he would dare to say it to my face. Perhaps he meant this!" She went on contemptuously, rummaging in her work-basket--
"For all I can remember he may have given it to me. One of them did, I know. Isn't it nonsense?"
She held a crumpled scrap of paper towards her guardian, and he took it with the air of a man accepting service of a writ. "Am I to read it?" he asked stiffly.
"Of course--I suppose he intended it to be read."
And the Archdeacon holding it gingerly, just as if it were the royal invitation before mentioned, read a few lines--