Jack, however, did not go to inspect his gun, and consult with the gamekeeper, immediately on his father’s departure. He waited for a few minutes, while Sara, who had been so cold, rushed to the window, and threw it open. “There must be thunder in the air--one can scarcely breathe,” she said. And Jack watched her jealously, and did not lose a single look. “You were complaining of cold just now,” he said. “Sara, mind what you are about. If you think you can play that young Powys at the end of your line, you’re making a great mistake.” “Play whom?” cried Sara, blazing up. “You are a nice person to preach to me! I am playing nobody at the end of my line. I have no line to play with; and you that are making a fool of that poor little simple Pamela--” “Be quiet, will you?” said Jack, furious. “That poor little simple Pamela, as you call her, is going to be my wife.” Sara gazed at him for a moment thunderstruck, standing like something made into stone, with her velvet jacket, which she had just taken off, in her hands. Then the color fled from her cheeks as quickly as it had come to them, and her great eyes filled suddenly, like crystal cups, with big tears. She threw the jacket down out of her hands, and rushed to her brother’s side, and clasped his arm. “You don’t mean it, Jack?--do you mean it?” she cried, piteously, gazing up into his face; and a crowd of different emotions, more than Jack could discriminate or divine, was in her voice. There was pleasure and there was sorrow, and sharp envy and pride and regret. She clasped his arm, and looked at him with a look which said--“How could you?--how dare you?--and, oh, how lucky you are to be able to do it!”--all in a breath. “Of course I mean it,” said Jack, a little roughly; but he did not mean to be rough. “And that is why I tell you it is odious of you, Sara, to tempt a man to his destruction, when you know you can do nothing for him but break his heart.” “Can’t I?” said Sara, dropping away from his arm, with a faint little moan; and then she turned quickly away, and hid her face in her hands. Jack, for his part, felt he was bound to improve the occasion, though his heart smote him. He stood secure on his own pedestal of virtue, though he did not want her to copy him. Indeed, such virtue in Sara would have been little short of vice. “Nothing else,” said Jack, “and yet you creatures do it without ever thinking of the sufferings you cause. I saw the state that poor fellow was in when he left you last night; and now you begin again sending him books! What pleasure can you have in it! It is something inconceivable to me.”