Mr. Raleigh fastened the case and restored it silently.
"You think that absurd? You would not marry an heiress?"
Mr. Raleigh did not at once reply.
"You would not, then, propose to an heiress?"
"No."
As this monosyllable fell from his lips, Marguerite's motion placed her beyond hearing. She took a few swift steps, but paused and leaned against the wall of the gable for support, and, placing her hand upon the sun-beat bricks, she felt a warmth in them which there seemed to be neither in herself nor in the wide summer-air.
Mrs. Purcell came along, opening her parasol.
"I am going to the orchard," said she; "cherries are ripe. Hear the robins and the bells! Do you want to come?"
"No," said Marguerite.
"There are bees in the orchard, too,—the very bees, for aught I know, that Mr. Raleigh used to watch thirteen years ago, or their great-grand-bees,—they stand in the same place."