Here the little animal winked.
"Oh!" I said, willing to hear what the creature would say.
"I have scarcely spoke to her for a long time; but I hear some of her proceedings," he continued.
"You do?—from whom, pray?"
"Why, it can't be supposed I never hear Amy talking about how often she goes out with Betsy. I'm very much against Amy seeing her at all. Her steady stupid sister would be a far safer companion than such a wild sort of girl as Betsy Juffles."
"You say she once made advances to you," I said, with a horrid suspicion at my heart that I had been an egregious fool.
"Didn't she? You should have seen her looks. She always sat a little behind her mother's chair, so as to be out of the old lady's eye, and did cast such preternatural glances across the room to me, and smiled, and smirked, and sidled, and shook her curls—it was wonderful to behold, but she had no philosophy, and I looked cold"——
"And chilled her?"
"Exactly. I could have tumbled her into the railway, and been off to Gretna, by only holding up my finger—but I wouldn't. She bore it pretty well, considering the disappointment; and first consoled herself by flirting at a ball with a set of ensigns and cornets, and then took to you."
"To me? I don't understand you, Mr Jeeks."