Part 3 (1/2)

'A very grand one I think,' he replies, 'but I should never have thought you would care for that kind of literature.'

'Why not?--'

'Because, well, I should have thought it would have been too deep for you--'

'Really,' then after a pause, 'do you know _that_ wasn't very polite--'

'Wasn't it? suppose I say then that I am agreeably surprised--'

'That's nearly as bad, if not quite, it sounds as if you expected me to read nothing but books like the ”Daisy Chain,” or ”Laneton Parsonage.”'

'Very excellent books too--'

'Oh, Paul! how _tiresome_ you are, do you know I,' and then Miss Seaton is filled with confusion, she has called him by his Christian name and he is looking at her and smiling. 'I--er beg your pardon,' she says quickly in her childish way.

'What for?' asks he, pretending not to understand her.

'For calling you by your Christian name--'

'Well, and what harm was there?'

'You see,' she says deprecatingly, 'Mabel is always talking about you, and so I get into the habit of talking of you as Paul.'

Paul rises and standing in front of her says--'As I said before, where is the harm? I have never called you anything else but Philippa, or Lippa; I could not address you as Miss Seaton, it does not suit you one bit you know; now let us make it a compact from henceforth, I call you Lippa, and you call me Paul.'

'Very well,' replies she.

'What ever are you two doing here,' and the curtain is hastily drawn aside by Mabel. 'You look as grave as judges, come and have some strawberries and cream, Lady Dadford has gone.'

At the sound of strawberries, Lippa hastily rises, and they go into the front room, where Jimmy Dalrymple is.

'How do you do,' says Philippa, wondering how long he has been there.

And then they attack the strawberries.

'I'm longing to know what you two were talking about,' says Mabel.

Paul laughs and replies, 'We were settling a very weighty matter, weren't we, Lippa?'

Philippa merely says 'Yes,' and longs to turn the conversation, for what may not Jimmy think.

In truth he feels an unaccountable overwhelming desire to know what the weighty matter was, but he is not to know, and therefore is kept on tenter hooks for some time.

'She came to ask us all to a cattle show and ball,' Mrs Seaton is saying.

'Who?' asks her brother.

'Lady Dadford; she particularly wants you.'