Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 3.djvu/196

186 cares intent;" but I was not going to lay myself out for her amusement, whoever else might so incline: I merely honoured her with a careless salutation and a few words of course, and then went on with my writing, leaving my brother to be more polite if he chose. But she wanted to teaze me.

"What a pleasure it is to find you at home, Mr. Markham!" said she, with a disingenuously malicious smile. "I so seldom see you now, for you never come to the vicarage. Papa is quite offended I can tell you," she added playfully, looking into my face with an impertinent laugh, as she seated herself, half beside and half before my desk, off the corner of the table.

"I have had a good deal to do of late," said I, without looking up from my letter.

"Have you indeed! Somebody said you had been strangely neglecting your business these last few months."

"Somebody said wrong, for, these last two