Selina hasn't taken you altogether away from him.'
Laura was silent a moment; then she returned: 'What nice young man would ever look at me, if anything bad should happen?'
'I would never look at him if he should let that prevent him!' the old woman cried. 'It isn't for your sister he loves you, I suppose; is it?'
'He doesn't love me at all.'
'Ah, then he does?' Lady Davenant demanded, with some eagerness, laying her hand on the girl's arm. Laura sat near her on her sofa and looked at her, for all answer to this, with an expression of which the sadness appeared to strike the old woman freshly. 'Doesn't he come to the house—doesn't he say anything?' she continued, with a voice of kindness.
'He comes to the house—very often.'
'And don't you like him?'
'Yes, very much—more than I did at first.'
'Well, as you liked him at first well enough to bring him straight to see me, I suppose that means that now you are immensely pleased with him.'
'He's a gentleman,' said Laura.
'So he seems to me. But why then doesn't he speak out?'
'Perhaps that's the very reason! Seriously,' the girl added, 'I don't know what he comes to the house for.'
'Is he in love with your sister?'
'I sometimes think so.'
'And does she encourage him?'
'She detests him.'
'Oh, then, I like him! I shall immediately
