ardly less to be pitied, for she had to be brought up to
the supreme effort of dealing the _coup de grace_. Nobody could do it
for her, even her mother told her that severely, in order to brace the
girlish nerves, when Dora gave way to the first cowardly instinct of
seeking to shirk the ordeal. If a girl was old enough to receive an
offer of marriage, she was old enough to answer it for herself in
person. It was the least return she could make for the high compliment
which had been paid to her, to see the man and tell him with her own
lips that she would have nothing to say to the honest heart and liberal
hand, for he had hinted at generous settlements, which he had been only
too eager to lay at her feet.

It was little use even for mild Dora to protest that she had not
wished for such a compliment, and had done nothing to provoke it, so
that the reckless compliment-payer was but receiving his deserts in an
unconditional refusal. It did not make the step easier for her. It was
no joke to her, whatever it might be to her hard-hearted young sisters.

To tell the truth, Rose and May, aye, even Annie, took much lively
diversion, as Dora guessed, in secretly watching the entire proceeding.
The sisters found out the hour of the compulsory interview. They
covertly looked out for the arrival of the commonplace wooer--anything
save their idea of a lover and hero. They keenly took note of him from
an upper window as he walked with a certain studied composure, yet with
a blankness of aspect, through the shrubbery. They even deigned--Annie
as well as Rose and May--surreptitiously to inspect the poor wretch
between the bannisters of the staircase, as he ran desperately up the
stairs, thrusting one hand through his foxy hair and carrying his hat
in the other, and vanished into the drawing-room.

After this brutal behaviour on the part of a trio of English girls, one
must show a little moderation in condemning the cruel conduct of the
Roman dames, who contemplated with zest the deadly contests of the
gladiators in the arena; at least the gladiators were strangers and
barbarians, not fellow-townsmen and near relations.

As for the present victim, he was happily unconscious of any spectator
beyond Bella the house-maid, but he felt relieved to be delivered from
her compassionate stare. He had an instinctive sense that she knew as
well as he did what he had come there for, and was pitying him--an
inference in which he was quite correct