‘Halloa! what are you making a row about? I’ll tell you what, Rosa. It strikes me very forcibly you want to “carry on” with Lord Worcester’s keeper, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself for thinking of it. You—who have been educated and brought up in every respect like a lady—to condescend to flirt with an upstart like that, _a mere servant_! Why, he’s no better than Isaac Barnes, or old Whisker, or any of the rest of them, only he’s prig enough to oil his hair, and wear a button-hole, in order to catch the eye of such silly noodles like yourself.’ ‘You’ve no right to speak to me in this way, George. You know nothing at all about the matter.’ ‘I know that I found Darley and you in the lane with your heads very close together, and that directly he caught sight of me he made off. That doesn’t look as if his intentions were honourable, does it? Now, look you here, Rosa. Is he coming to the barn to-night?’ ‘I believe so!’ ‘And who asked him?’ ‘I don’t know,’ she replied, evasively; ‘papa, perhaps—or very likely Mr Darley thought he required no invitation to join a ploughman’s dance and supper.’ ‘Well, you’re not to dance with him if he does come.’ ‘I don’t know what right you have to forbid it.’ ‘None at all! but if you won’t give me the promise I shall go straight to the governor, and let him know what I saw to-day. _He’s_ seen something of it himself, I can tell you, and he told me to put you on your guard, so you can take your choice of having his anger or not.’ This statement was not altogether true, for if Farmer Murray _had_ heard anything of his daughter’s flirtation with the handsome gamekeeper, it had been only what his sons had suggested to him, and he did not believe their reports. But the boys, George and Robert, now young men of three or four-and-twenty, had had more than one consultation together on the subject, and quite made up their minds that their sister must not be allowed to marry Frederick Darley. For they were quite alive to the advantages that a good connection for her might afford to themselves, and wanted to see her raise the family instead of lowering it. Rosa, however, believed her brother’s word. Dread of her father’s anger actuated in a great measure this belief, and she began to fear lest all communication between Darley and herself might be broken off if she did not give the required promise. And the very existence of the fear opened her eyes to the truth, that her lover was become a necessary part of life’s enjoyment to her. So, like a true woman and a hunted hare, she temporised and ‘doubled.’ ‘Does papa really think I am too intimate with Mr Darley, George?’ she inquired, trembling. ‘Of course he does, like all the rest of us.’ ‘But it’s a mistake. I don’t care a pin about him.’ ‘Then it will be no privation for you to give up dancing with him to-night.’ ‘I never intended to dance with him.’ ‘Honour bright, Rosa?’