“Oh yes,” said Matty, “I know what you could do: you could get a little organ and marry somebody who would play it, and teach the people better; I know exactly what you could do,” said the young lady with a piquant little touch of spite, and a look that startled Colin; and then she paused, and hung her head for a moment and blushed, or looked as if she blushed. “But you would not?” said Matty, softly, with a sidelong glance at her victim. “Don’t marry anybody; no one is of any use after that. I don’t approve of marrying, for my part, especially for a priest. Priests should always be detached, you know, from the world.” “Why?” said Colin. He was quite content to go on talking on such a subject for any length of time. “As for marrying, it is only your rich squires and great people who can marry when they please; we who have to make our own way in the world--” said the young man, with a touch of grandeur, but was stopped by Miss Matty’s sudden laughter. “Oh, how simple you are! As if rich squires and great people, as you say, could marry when they pleased--as if any man could marry when he pleased!” cried Miss Matty, scornfully. “After all, we do count for something, we poor women; now and then, we can put even an eldest son out in his calculations. It is great fun too,” said the young lady, and she laughed, and so did Colin, who could not help wondering what special case she might have in her eye, and listened with all the eagerness of a lover. “There is poor Harry--” said Miss Matty under her breath, and stopped short and laughed to herself and sipped her tea, while Colin lent an anxious ear. But nothing further followed that soft laughter. Colin sat on thorns, gazing at her with a world of questions in his face, but the siren looked at him no more. Poor Harry! Harry’s natural rival was sensible of a thrill of jealous curiosity mingled with anxiety. What had she done to Harry, this witch who had beguiled Colin?--or was it not she who had done anything to him, but some other as pretty and as mischievous? Colin had no clue to the puzzle, but it gave him a new _accès_ of half-conscious enmity to the heir of Wodensbourne.