To Edgar, Adelaide expressed herself with delightful enthusiasm.  She was not often stirred to such a display of feeling.  “It is the marriage of the county,” she said with her prettiest smile—­“the very thing for every one.”

“Think so?” was his reply, made by no means enthusiastically.  “If Joseph likes it, that is all that need be said; but it is a marvel to me how she can—­such an unmanly creature as he is! such a muff all through!”

“Well, I own he would not have been my choice exactly,” said Adelaide with a nice little look.  “I like something stronger and more decided in a man; but it is just as well that we all do not like the same person; and then, you see, there are Leam and the child to be considered.  Lean is such an utterly unfit person to bring up Fina:  she is ruining her, indeed, as it is, with her capricious temper and variable moods; and dear Josephine’s quiet amiability and good sense will be so valuable among them.  I think we ought to be glad, as Christians, that such a chance is offered them.”

“Whatever else you may be, at least you are no hypocrite,” said Edgar with a forced smile that did not look much like approbation.

She chose to accept it simply.  “No,” she answered quite tranquilly, “I am not a hypocrite.”

“At all events, you do not disguise your dislike to Leam Dundas,” he said.

“No:  why should I?  I confess it honestly, I do not like her.  The daughter of such a woman as her mother was; up to fifteen years of age a perfect savage; a heathen with a temper that makes me shudder when I think of it; capable of any crime.  No, don’t look shocked, Edgar:  I am sure of it.  That girl could commit murder; and I verily believe that she did push Fina into the water, as the child says, and that if Josephine had not got there in time she would have let her drown.  And if I think all this, how can I like her?”

“No, if you think all this, as you say, you cannot like her,” replied Edgar coldly.  “I don’t happen to agree with you, however, and I think your assumptions monstrous.”

“You are not the first man blinded by a pair of dark eyes, Edgar,” said Adelaide with becoming mournfulness.  “It makes me sorry to see such a mind as yours dazzled out of its better sense, but you will perhaps come right in time.  At all events, Josephine’s marriage with Mr. Dundas will give you a kind of fatherly relation with Leam that may show you the truth of what I say.”

“Fatherly relation! what rubbish!” cried Edgar, irritated out of his politeness.

Adelaide smiled.  “Well, you would be rather a young father for her,” she answered.  “Still, the character of the relation will be, as I say, fatherly.”

Edgar laughed impatiently.

“Society will accept it in that light,” said Adelaide gravely, glad to erect even this barrier of shadows between the man of her choice and the girl whom she both dreaded and disliked.