Маргарет Олифант - Neighbours on the Green; My Faithful Johnny

‘They have all nice names,’ said the first speaker, who was young too, and attached a certain weight to this particular. ‘They don’t sound like mere rich people. They might be of a good old family to judge by their names.’

‘Yes; she is Ada,’ said Lucy, reflectively, ‘and he is Harry, and the little boy’s name is Percy. But Gerald is the darling! Gerald is the one for me!’

The window was open at the time, and the child was talking incautiously loud, so that I was not much surprised, for my part, when a peal of laughter from outside followed this speech, and Ada, with her brother-in-law in attendance, appeared under the veranda. Of course Lucy was covered with confusion; but her blushes became the little creature, and gave her a certain shy grace which was very pretty to behold. As for Lottie, I think the contrast made her paler. Looking at her beautiful refined head against the light, nobody could help admiring it; but she was not round and dimpled and rosy like her little sister. After a while Gerald Gresham managed to get into the corner where Lottie was, to talk to her; but his eyes sought the younger creature all the same. A man has it all his own way when there is but one in the room. He was gracious to all the girls, like a civilized English sultan; but they were used to that, poor things, and took it very good-naturedly.

‘It is not his fault if he is the only man in the place,’ said Lucy; and she was not displeased, though her cheeks burned more hotly than ever when he took advantage of her incautious speech.

‘I must not let you forget that it is Gerald who is the darling,’ he said laughing. Of course it was quite natural, and meant nothing, and perhaps no one there but Lottie and myself thought anything of this talk; but it touched her, poor girl, with a certain mortification, and had a curious effect upon me. I could not keep myself from thinking, Would it be Lucy after all? After her sister had made up her mind in desperation; after she had screwed her courage to the last fatal point; after she had consciously committed herself and compromised her maiden up-rightness, would it be Lucy who would win the prize without an effort? I cannot describe the effect it had upon me. It made me burn with indignation to think that Lottie Stoke was putting forth all her powers to attract this stranger—this man who was rich, and could buy her if he pleased; and, at the same time, his looks at Lucy filled me with the strangest sense of disappointment. I ought to have been glad that such humiliating efforts failed of success, and yet I was not. I hated them, and yet I could not bear to think they would be in vain.

‘And Harry has gone to town again to-day,’ said Ada, with a pout of her pretty mouth, ‘though he promised to stay and take me up the river. They make his life wretched with those telegrams and things. I ask him, What is the good of going on like this, when we have plenty of money? And then he tells me I am a little fool and don’t understand.’

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