Honor looked suddenly up at him, and grew serious.
"I have acquaintances who presume to question me, as though they had the rights of one," she said, sinking lazily back in her chair.
"Then, they usurp somebody's privileges, by so doing—do they not?"
The girl looked indignantly at him, and only withdrew her powerful glance slowly, as she said:
"Mr. Standish, I find it strange, that you should think me utterly different from other girls; pray, undeceive yourself I have my friends, and loves, and follies, and caprices like the rest and will have all my life. I expect to to be just as foolish in my love affairs some day, as you men generally consider most girls to be."
"I hope so," he answered meaningly, and as she rose to leave the conservatory, for another dance, she heard him mutter: "for my sake."
CHAPTER XXVII.
"He whom thou fearest will, to ease its pain,
Lay his cold hand upon thy aching heart,
Soothe the terrors of thy troubled brain,
And bid the shadows of earth's griefs depart."
—A Proctor
"You had better watch him closely, Mrs. Pratt, his condition is precarious, and as he has been thrown on your hands, do not treat him shabbily—"
"You ken bet I'll not," said the matronly female, who stood half hidden in the humble doorway, from which Dr. Belford had just made his exit. "Lawks, doctor dear, I'll have an eye to him, jest as if he was my very own. It'ud not be me 'at would neglec' any Christian that fate had thrown on me hands."