Page:Cuthbert Bede--Verdant Green married and done for.djvu/73

Rh attachment, you might then have checked your own. I did not ever dream of this!" And Miss Patty, who had turned pale, and trembled with agitation, could not restrain a tear.

"It is very kind of you thus to feel for me!" said Verdant; "and all I ask is, that you will still remain my friend."

"Indeed, I will. And I am sure Kitty will always wish to be the same. She will be sadly grieved to hear of this; for, I can assure you that she had no suspicion you were attached to her."

"Attached to !" cried Verdant, with vast surprise. "What ever do you mean?"

"Have you not been telling me of your secret love for her?" answered Miss Patty, who again turned her thoughts to the champagne.

"Love for her? No! nothing of the kind."

"What! and not spoken about your grief when I told you that Frederick Delaval had proposed to her, and had been accepted?"

"Proposed to her?" cried Verdant, in a kind of dreamy swoon. "Yes! to whom else do you suppose he would propose?" "To you!"

"To !"

"Yes, to you! Why, have you not been telling me that you were engaged to him?"

"Telling you that I was engaged to Fred!" rejoined Miss Patty. "Why, what could put such an idea into your head? Fred is engaged to Kitty. You asked me if it was not so; and I told you, yes, but that it was a secret at present. Why, then of whom were you talking?"

"Of you!"

"Of me?"

"Yes, of you!" And the scales fell from the eyes of both, and they saw their mutual mistake.

There was a silence, which Verdant was the first to break.

"It seems that love is really blind. I now perceive how we have been playing at cross questions and crooked answers. When I asked you about Mr. Delaval, my thoughts were wholly of you, and I spoke of you, and not of your sister, as you imagined; and I fancied that you answered not for your sister, but for yourself. When I spoke of my attachment, it did not refer to your sister, but to you." "To me?" softly said Miss Patty, as a delicious tremor stole over her.