"You knew Mr. Raleigh thirteen years ago?" she asked, glancing up curiously.
"Yes."
"Well?"
"Very well."
"How much is very well?"
"He proposed to me. Smother your anger; he didn't care for me; some one told him that I cared for him."
"Did you?"
"This is what the Inquisition calls applying the question?" asked Mrs. Purcell. "Nonsense, dear child! he was quite in love with somebody else."
"And that was——?"
"He supposed your mother to be a widow. Well, if you won't come, I shall go alone and read my 'L'Allegro' under the boughs, with breezes blowing between the lines. I can show you some little field-mice like unfledged birds, and a nest that protrudes now and then glittering eyes and cleft fangs."