"I beg your pardon," said she most amiably; "but I don't think your uncle's proposal so very absurd. It is the commonest thing in the world for people to wish persons in whom they are interested to marry each other; and very often they succeed by merely getting the young people to meet, and so forth. You say yourself that it is reasonable in certain cases. Well, in this case, you probably don't know how great an interest your uncle takes in Miss Avon, and the affection that he has for her. It is quite remarkable. And he has been dwelling on this possibility of a match between you—of seeing you both settled at Denny-mains—until he almost regards it as already arranged. 'Put yourself in his place,' as Mr. Reade says. It seems to him the most natural thing in the world, and I am afraid he will consider you very ungrateful if you don't fall in with his plan."
Deeper and deeper grew the shadow of perplexity on the young man's brow. At first he had seemed inclined to laugh the whole matter aside, but the gentle reasoning of this small person had a ghastly aspect of seriousness about it.
"Then his notion of my seeking out the man Smethurst and giving him a thrashing: you would justify that, too?" he cried.
"No, not quite," she answered, with a bit of a smile. "That is a little absurd, I admit—it is merely an ebullition of anger. He won't think any more of that in a day or two I am certain. But the other—the other, I fear, is a fixed idea."
At this point we heard some one calling outside:
"Miss Mary! I have been searching for ye everywhere; are ye coming for a walk down to the shore?"
Then a voice, apparently overhead at an open window—
"All right, sir; I will be down in a moment."
Another second or two, and we hear some one singing on the stair, with a fine air of bravado—
A strong sou-wester's blowing, Billy; can't you hear it roar, now?