"Never! never!" she said, and her eyes flashed through her tears. "Oh, Fox! if you knew who he was you would never have said that."
"But if he should come and solicit thy hand?"
"He cannot. He has told me that he loved another."
Fox continued to attend her, in silence. He was puzzled what line to adopt. What she had told him had surprised and discomfited him. That Bessie--the ordinary, plain-faced, methodical Bessie--should have had her romance was to him a surprise.
How little do we know of what passes under our very feet. Who dreamed of magnetic currents till the magnetometer registered their movements? Waves roll through the solid crust of earth without making it tremble at all; magnetic storms rage around us without causing a disturbance in the heavens, and but for the unclosing of our eyes through the scientific instrument we should know nothing about them--have laughed at the thought of their existence.
"I must needs walk on with thee," said Fox; "for I cannot leave thee till thy father come and overtake thee. And if I walk at thy side, well--we must talk, at all events I must, for my tongue has not the knack of lying still behind my teeth."
Fox was at heart angry at his ill-success; he had hoped to have made a great impression on Bessie by the declaration of his love. She was but an ordinarily-favoured girl, as he knew well enough had never been sought by young men, always thrust aside, accustomed to see others preferred to herself--at a dance to be left against the wall without a partner, after church to be allowed to accompany her father home, without any lad seeking to attach himself to her and disengage her from the old man. To a girl so generally disregarded his addresses ought to have come as a surprise, and have been accepted with eagerness. He was in a rage with her for the emphatic and resolute manner in which she refused him.
"With all my heart," she replied, with a sigh of relief.
"Do you see any way in which your brother can be received again into favour?" he inquired.
She shook her head. "Nothing that I can say has any effect on my father. He will not permit me to go near Willsworthy."
"Then I can say what is the only way in which peace and good will may be brought back into the family. It lies in your hands to build a bridge between your father and Tony. I am certain that in his heart the old Squire is discontented that things should remain as they are, but he has spoken the word, and he is too proud to withdraw it. If it could have come to pass that you took my hand, then I do not believe that your father would resist our united persuasion. See how much weight we could have brought to bear on him, how we could have watched our opportunities, how--if it should happen at any time that Tony should have a child, we might have brought it to the old man, set it on his knees, and then together have taken the right moment to plead for Anthony."