"I shouldn't care about your not being ornamental, if only you were useful. But it is dreadful to see you wasting your life." "I assure you I am employing my life in a very agreeable manner just now," answered Owen, resting on his elbow, and glancing up from under the shadow of his straw hat. "Agreeable! That is not the point." "It's _my_ point." "Ah! Well, we won't begin a wrangle, Owen; but----" "My dear Aunt Jane! Do I ever wrangle with you?" "You do worse. I'm afraid you are incorrigible. But every one else sees that I am right. Ask May what she thinks." May started, and coloured violently; but she kept her eyes on the needlework in her hand, and said nothing. "No; I shall not ask Miss Cheffington. She is a partisan, and would be sure to side with you." "Not at all. May has her own opinions; haven't you, May?" "One can't help having opinions," returned May shyly. "Good gracious! Miss Cheffington, what an extraordinarily wild assertion! 'Can't help having opinions----'? One might suppose you had been nurtured among sages, and had never heard of Mr. Thomas Carlyle's celebrated majority." "I have been nurtured by Granny," rejoined May, lifting her eyes for the first time with a bright, brief glance. "Ay," exclaimed Mrs. Hadlow, "I'd advise you to ask Mrs. Dobbs what _she_ thinks of a young man with your education and talents--oh, you need not disclaim having brains, it only makes your case so much the worse!--sitting lazily in his form, and letting all sorts of dunderheaded tortoises win the race." "Bravo, Aunt Jane! I like 'dunderheaded tortoises.' 'Mobled Queen is good.'" "You wouldn't enjoy hearing Mrs. Dobbs's opinion, I can tell you. I know very well what she would say," pursued Mrs. Hadlow, more than half angry. "I should like to ask her myself," said Owen, rising to his feet. "Do you think I might, Miss Cheffington?" "Of course! If you have courage!" answered May, looking up with a smile. "I'm quite in earnest; I have long wished to know Mrs. Dobbs. Do you think she would consider it a liberty if I were to call?" May cast her eyes down again, and became very busy with her needlework. "No," she answered; "I don't think Granny would consider it a liberty; she knows about you. I mean she knows you are Mrs. Hadlow's nephew." Mrs. Hadlow gave no more thought to this conversation, and May, although she gave many thoughts to it, told herself that Mr. Rivers had only been jesting, and that nothing was more unlikely than that he should fulfil his words. She told herself so, with all the more insistence because at the bottom of her heart she longed that he and "Granny" should know each other. Nevertheless, on the very next afternoon, when May was absent, Owen Rivers did call at Jessamine Cottage.