“This matter!” A rippling and yet a somewhat forced laugh fell from the girl's curling lips. “You speak as if you were referring to some business transaction.”
'“You know what I mean,” Mrs. Mayfield smiled good-naturedly. “Before we came here this summer, while Mr. Peterson was so attentive to you in Atlanta, I told you that he had plainly given me to understand that he was in love with you, and wished to pay his addresses in the most serious and respectful way.”
“Well?” Ethel shrugged her shoulders. “I have let him come to see me oftener, really, than any of my other friends, and—”
“But that isn't all he wants, and you are well aware of it,” the mother urged. “He says you don't write to him as freely and openly as you once did—he has acted very considerately, I think. Owing to your uncle's death he did not like to intrude, but now he can't really understand you, and is naturally disturbed.”
“So he has written to you?” Ethel said, crisply, almost resentfully.
“Yes, he has written to me. I am not going to show you his letter. The poor fellow is deeply worried. The truth is, as he says, that most of your set down home look on you—”
“As his property, I know,” Ethel flashed forth. “Some men are apt to allow a report like that to get circulated. The last time he was here he dropped half a dozen remarks which showed that he had no other thought than that I was quite carried away with him.”
Mrs. Mayfield faced the speaker with a gentle smile of perplexity. “You know, dear, that I firmly believe in love-matches, and if I didn't think you could really love Mr. Peterson I'd never let you think of marrying him; but he really is such a safe, honorable man, and has such brilliant prospects, that I'd not be a natural mother if I were not hopeful that you—”
“You mustn't bother with him and me, mother,” Ethel said, weariedly. “I know all his good points, and I know some of his less admirable ones; but I have some rights in the matter. I have really never encouraged him to think I would marry him, and it is because—well, because his recent letters have been just a little too confident that I have not answered. I can't bear that sort of thing from a man, and I want him to know it.”
“Well, I'm going to wash my hands of it,” Mrs. Mayfield said, smiling. “I want you to be happy. You have suffered so keenly of late that it has broken my heart to see it, and I want your happiness above all. Then there is something else.”