“And I haven’t got anything to support her on even if she said yes, which she wouldn’t.” “You may get that in time. Remember, Jeremy, she is a very lovely woman, and soon she is sure to find other lovers.” Jeremy groaned. “But if once you had secured her affection, and she is a good woman, as I think she is, that would not matter, though you might not be able to marry for some years.” “Then what am I to do?” “I should tell her that you loved her, and ask her, if she could care for you—to wait for you awhile.” Jeremy whistled meditatively. “I’ll ask Ernest about it when he comes back on Monday.” “If I were you I should act for myself in that matter,” she said quickly. “No good being in a hurry; I haven’t known her a fortnight—I’ll ask Ernest.” “Then you will regret it,” Dorothy answered, almost passionately, and rising, left the room. “Now, what did she mean by that?” reflected her brother aloud; “she always is so deuced queer when Ernest is concerned.” But his inner consciousness returned no satisfactory answer, so with a sigh the lovelorn Jeremy took up his hat and walked. On Sunday, that was the day following his talk with Dorothy, he saw Eva again in church, where she looked, he thought, more like an angel than ever, and was quite as inaccessible. In the churchyard he did, it is true, manage to get a word or two with her, but nothing more, for the sermon had been long, and Florence was hungry, and hurried her sister home to lunch. And then, at last, came Monday, the long-expected day of Ernest’s arrival. CHAPTER VII. ERNEST IS INDISCREET Kesterwick is a primitive place, and has no railway station nearer than Raffham, four miles off. Ernest was expected by the midday train, and Dorothy and her brother went to meet him. When they reached the station the train was just in sight, and Dorothy got down to await its arrival. Presently it snorted up composedly—trains do not hurry themselves on the single lines in the Eastern counties—and in due course deposited Ernest and his portmanteau. “Hullo, Doll! so you have come to meet me. How are you, old girl?” and he embraced her on the platform. “You shouldn’t, Ernest: I am too big to be kissed like a little girl, and in public too.” “Big—h’m! Miss five feet nothing, and as for the public, I don’t see any.” The train had gone on, and the solitary porter had vanished with the portmanteau. “Well, there is no need for you to laugh at me for being small; it is not everybody who can be a May-pole, like you, or as broad as he is long, like Jeremy.” An unearthly view halloo from this last-named personage, who had caught sight of Ernest through the door of the booking-office, put a stop to further controversy, and presently all three were driving back, each talking at the top of his or her voice.