Page:Ralph Connor - The man from Glengarry.djvu/400

  "Do you mean he is going to speak to your father about you, Maimie?" Maimie nodded. "And are you glad?"

"He's very handsome, auntie, and very nice, and he's awfully well connected, and that sort of thing, and when Lord Heathcote dies he has a good chance of the estates and the title."

"Do you love him, Maimie?" asked her aunt, quietly.

Maimie dropped the dress, and sitting down upon a low stool, turned her face from her aunt, and looked out of the window.

"Oh, I suppose so, auntie," she said. "He's very nice and gentlemanly and I like to be with him—"

"But, Maimie, dear, are you not sure that you love him?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Maimie, petulantly. "Are you not pleased, auntie?"

"Well, I confess I am surprised. I do not know Captain De Lacy, and besides I thought it was—I thought you—" Mrs. Murray paused, while Maimie's face grew hot with fiery blushes, but before she could reply they heard Harry's step on the stairs, and in a moment he burst into the room.

"Ranald isn't coming!" he exclaimed. "Here's a note for you, Maimie. But what the—but what he means," said Harry, checking himself, "I can't make out."

"Not coming?" cried Maimie, the flush fading from her face. "What can he mean?" She opened the note, and as she read the blood rushed quickly