Page:Mistress Madcap Surrenders (1926).pdf/34

 stop beside her. The next instant, before she could speak, she was drawn roughly into an embrace and pressed smotheringly against a broad chest.

"Let me go, sir!" With blazing eyes, Mehitable spoke as soon as she was partially released. But the dandy, who had sneaked after her to the window and who had snatched her into his arms half in fun, merely simpered down into her face.

"What'll ye gi' me an I do?" he asked, after awhile, keeping his arm around her waist.

"Naught!" returned Mehitable shortly. "Release me, sir, I prithee!"

Tis not thus we play at forfeits!" The young man's tone was gravely injured and complaining. "Pay me a forfeit and I will let ye go, pretty spitfire!"

"Never!" Mehitable straightened her slender figure defiantly, which only made the other laugh.

"Alas!" he said lazily, with a prodigious sigh of mock patience. "Then must we stand here all night!"

Mehitable twisted herself in his grasp to glance despairingly around the room. Strangely enough, neither tavern host nor hostess were to be seen—poor Mehitable had not noticed Mistress Ranfield motioning her puzzled husband into the kitchen a few moments before, Charity was fast asleep in her chair, worn out by her hard afternoon, and the