"Oh, Phil, don't talk such nonsense. If we were to be separated, for a week or a month, what could that matter, in comparison with saying what wasn't----" "Hush," he said, putting his hand to her mouth. "It's not nice of you to take it so easily, Nell. I'd tell as many what-d'ye-call-'ems as you like, rather than put it off an hour. Why, feeling apart (and I don't think you've any feeling, you little piece of ice), think how inconvenient it would have been; the people all arriving; the breakfast all ready; the Rector with his surplice on; and no wedding! Fancy the Jew with all her fallals, on the old lady's hands, and your cousin John----" "I have told you already, Phil, my cousin John will not be there." "So much the better," he said, with a laugh, "I don't want him to be there--shows his sense, when his nose is put out of joint, to keep out of the way." "I wish you would understand," she said, with a little vexation, "that John is not put out of joint, as you say in that odious way. He has never been anything more to me, nor I to him, than we are now--like brother and sister." "The more fool he," said Compton, "to have the chance of a nice girl like you, Nell, and not to go in for it. But I don't believe a bit in the brother and sister dodge." "We will be just the same all our lives," cried Elinor. "Not if I know it," said Phil. "I'm an easy-going fellow in most ways, but you'll find I'm an old Turk about you, my little duck of a Nell. No amateur brother for me. If you can't get along with your old Phil, without other adorers----" "Phil! as if I should ever think or care whether there was another man in the world!" "Oh, that's going too far," he said, laughing. "I shan't mind a little flirtation. You may have a man or two in your train to fetch and carry, get your shawl for you, and call your carriage, and so forth; but no serious old hand, Nell--nothing to remind you that there was a time when you didn't know Phil Compton." His laugh died away at this point, and for a moment his face assumed that grave look which changed its character so much. "If you don't come to repent before then that you ever saw that fellow's ugly face, Nell----" "Phil, how could I ever repent? Nobody but you should dare to say such a thing to me!"