"It's too wonderful, what you've done with the house!"—the visitor met her friend's eyes. They lighted up with joy—that friend herself so pleased with what she had done. This was not at all, in its accidental air of enthusiasm, what Fleda wanted to have said: it offered her as stupidly announcing from the first minute on whose side she was. Such was clearly the way Mrs. Gereth took it: she threw herself upon the delightful girl and tenderly embraced her again; so that Fleda soon went on, with a studied difference and a cooler inspection: "Why, you brought away absolutely everything!" "You must sit down, then, till I go," said Fleda. "We must find a bench."!

He only, at this, like a buffeting swimmer, gave a shake of his head and repeated his question. "Do you mean to tell me I must marry such a woman?" CHAPTER X

Fleda hesitated; she had not foreseen that so simple an inquiry could disconcert her. "I'm afraid I don't know." "So it appears." "Why so? It will be always so much done," said Fleda. "Though I'm poor," she added with a smile, "I don't mind the shilling."