n you use:
don't you think so? And I hope I wasn't rude: do you think I was rude?"

"Why, child, I don't think you could be rude to a fox that was eating
your chickens. You would ask him to take a chair and not hurry himself."

"Well, I must write to Mabyn now," Wenna said with a business-like air,
"and thank her for posting me this Prayer-book. I suppose she didn't
know I had my small one with me."

She took up the book, for she was sitting on the chair that Harry
Trelyon had just vacated. She had no sooner done so than she caught
sight of the sheet of paper with the dried flower and the inscription in
Mabyn's handwriting. She stared, with something of a look of fear on her
face. "Mother," she said in quite an altered voice, "did you notice if
Mr. Trelyon was looking at this Prayer-book?"

"I don't know, I'm sure," Mrs. Rosewarne said. "I should think he went
over every book on the table."

The girl said nothing, but she took the book in her hand and carried it
up to her own room. She stood for a moment irresolute: then she took the
sheet of paper with the flowers on it, and tore it in a hundred pieces
and threw them into the empty grate. Then she cried a little, as a girl
must; and finally went down again and wrote a letter to Mabyn which
rather astonished that young lady.

"MY DEAR MABYN" (so the letter ran): I am exceedingly angry with
you. I did not think you were capable of such folly: I might call
it by a worse name if I thought you really meant what you seem to
mean. I have just torn up the worthless scrap of flower you so
carefully preserved for me into a thousand pieces; but you will be
glad to know that in all probability Mr. Trelyon saw it on the
paper, and the initials too which you put there. I cannot tell you
how pained and angry I am. If he did place that flower
intentionally among the primroses, it was most impertinent of him;
but he is often impertinent in joking. What must he think of me
that I should seem to have taken this seriously, and treasured up
that miserable and horrid piece of weed, and put his initials below
it, and the important date? You put thoughts into my head that
cover me with shame. I should not be fit to live if I were what you
take me to be. If I thought there was another human being in the
world who could imagine or suspect what you apparently desire, I
would resolve this moment never to se