Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 2.djvu/269

Rh seriously; and then, taking his hand from her head, she kissed it with an air of genuine devotion, and tripped away to the door.

"What now?" said he. "Where are you going?"

"To tidy my hair," she answered, smiling through her disordered locks: "you've made it all come down."

"Off with you then!—An excellent little woman," he remarked when she was gone, "but a thought too soft—she almost melts in one's hands. I positively think I ill-use her sometimes, when I've taken too much—but I can't help it, for she never complains, either at the time or after. I suppose she doesn't mind it."

"I can enlighten you on that subject, Mr. Hattersley," said I: "she does mind it; and some other things she minds still more, which, yet, you may never hear her complain of."

"How do you know?—does she complain to you?" demanded he, with a sudden spark of fury ready to burst into a flame if I should answer 'Yes.'