me some encouragement, I shall get worse instead of better.”
“I will not give you any encouragement,” said Mary, reddening. “Your friends would dislike it, and so would mine. My father would think it a disgrace to me if I accepted a man who got into debt, and would not work!”
Fred was stung, and released her hand. She walked to the door, but there she turned and said:
“Fred, you have always been so good, so generous to me. I am not ungrateful. But never speak to me in that way again.”
“Very well,” said Fred, sulkily, taking up his hat and whip. His complexion showed patches of pale pink and dead white. Like many a plucked idle young gentleman, he was thoroughly in love, and with a plain girl, who had no money!
But having Mr. Featherstone’s land in the background, and a persuasion that, let Mary say what she would, she really did care for him, Fred was not utterly in despair.