"Auntie, how can you say anything so horrid? Not care for Allan! When he is in sad trouble, too! This morning's letter gives a most melancholy account of his father. I fear the end must be near. It was horrid of me to come running and singing over the grass; but these frosty mornings are so delicious. Look at that glorious blue sky!" "And when all is over, Allan will come back to you, I suppose? I must say you have endured the separation in the calmest way." "Why should I make myself unhappy? I know that it is Allan's duty to be at Fendyke. The only thing I regret is that I can't be there too, to help him to bear his sorrow." "And you do not mind being parted from him. You can live without him?" Suzette smiled at the sentimental question from the lips of her practical aunt, whose ideas seemed rarely to soar above the daily cares of housekeeping and the considerations of twopence as against twopence halfpenny. "I have had to live without him over twenty years, auntie." "Yes, but I thought that the moment a girl was engaged she found life impossible in the absence of her sweetheart." "I think that kind of girl must be very empty-headed." "And your little brains are well furnished--and then you have Mrs. Wornock and her son to fill up your days," said Mrs. Mornington, with a searching look. "I have Mrs. Wornock, and I like her society. I see very little of Mrs. Wornock's son." "Where is he, then? I thought he was at the Manor." "He is seldom at home in the daytime, and I am never there in the evening." "And so you never meet. You are like Box and Cox. So much the more satisfactory for Allan, I should say." "Really, aunt, you are in a most provoking mood this morning. I'm afraid the butcher's book must be heavier than you like." It was Tuesday--Mrs. Mornington's terrible day--the day on which the tradesmen's books came up for judgment; a day on which the cook trembled, and even the housemaids felt the electricity in the atmosphere. "I never like the butcher's book," said the lady; "but that isn't what set me thinking about you and Allan. I have been thinking about you for ever so long. I'm afraid you are not so fond of him as you ought to be." "Auntie, you have no right to say that." "Why not, pray, miss?" "Because, perhaps, if you had not urged me to accept him, I might not have said 'Yes' when he asked me the second time. Oh, pray don't look so frightened. I am very fond of him--very fond of him. I know that he is good and true and kind, and that he loves me better than I deserve to be loved, and thinks me better than I am--cleverer, prettier, altogether superior to my work-a-day self. And it is very sweet to have a lover who thinks of one in that exalted way. But I am not romantically in love, auntie. I don't believe that it is in my nature to be romantic. I see the bright and happy side of life. I see things to laugh at. I am not sentimental."