I felt the childishness of my own conduct, and the superior manliness of Miss Vernon's, and assured her, that she need not fear my wincing under criticism which I knew to be kindly meant.
"That was honestly meant and said," she replied; "I knew full well that the fiend of poetical irritability flew away with the little preluding cough which ushered in the declaration. And now I must be serious—Have you heard from your father lately?"
"Not a word," I replied; "he has not honoured me with a single line during the several months of my residence here."
"That is strange!—you are a singular race, you bold Osbaldistones. Then you are not aware that he has gone to Holland, to arrange some pressing affairs which required his own immediate presence?"
"I never heard a word of it until this moment."
"And farther, it must be news to you, and I presume scarcely the most agreeable, that he has left Rashleigh in the almost uncontrolled management of his affairs until his return."
I started, and could not suppress my surprise and apprehension.
"You have reason for alarm," said Miss Vernon, very gravely; "and were I you, I would endeavour to meet and obviate the dangers which arise from so undesirable an arrangement."
"And how is it possible for me to do so?"
"Everything is possible for him who possesses courage and activity," she said, with a look resembling one of those heroines of the age of chivalry, whose encouragement was wont to give champions double valour at the hour of need; "and to the timid and hesitating, everything is impossible, because it seems so."