Page:Comin' Thro' the Rye (1898).djvu/242

234 warrior to the tender mercies of Mrs. Lister. Very tender they will be too, as she wants him for a son-in-law. "How crestfallen he does look, to be sure! And he is considered to have more brass than any other man in his regiment."

"He is quickly routed, then; but it is impossible for a man to be rude to a lady, is it not?"

"Quite."

"Are fathers generally polite to their families?"

"If they are gentlemen."

"Oh!"

"I want to know," says Mr. Vasher, looking down on my tumbled bonnet, "what I am to call you. I won't call you Miss Adair; I don't like Helen. May I call you Nell?"

"Oh, no. What would Milly say? Besides, I was young when you use to call me that; I am grown up now."

"And no longer young?"

"Oh, yes; pretty well. When we have known each other a little longer, you know"

"Yes, we shall be near neighbours," he says, with quite a sudden gladness in his voice; we shall have plenty of time for getting to know each other better."

"I do not improve on acquaintance," I say, smiling. "Oh, you will find me out to be such a little wretch. If you saw me in a rage once, you would not forget it."

"Who puts you out?"

"Dorley, or Basan, or—or—another person."

"And supposing I do?"

"You will be frightened."

"I am not afraid," he says, looking deep into my laughing face with his brown, brown eyes, that are self-willed and strong and tender at one and the same time. "Did any one ever keep you in order, Nell?"