singing after she had met and spoken to him.  And then you talk about a prudent and sensible husband!  I don’t want Wenna to marry a watchful, mean, old, stocking-darning cripple, who will creep about the house all day and peer into cupboards, and give her fourpence-halfpenny a week to live on.  I want her to marry a man—­one that is strong enough to protect her.  And I tell you, mother—­I’ve said it before, and I say it again—­she shall not marry Mr. Roscorla.”

“Mabyn,” said her mother, “you are getting madder than ever.  Your dislike to Mr. Roscorla is most unreasonable.  A cripple!  Why—­”

“Oh, mother!” Mabyn cried with a bright light on her face, “only think of our Wenna being married to Mr. Trelyon, and how happy and pleased and pretty she would look as they went walking together!  And then how proud he would be to have so nice a wife! and he would joke about her and be very impertinent, but he would simply worship her all the same, and do everything he could to please her.  And he would take her away and show her all the beautiful places abroad; and he would have a yacht, too; and he would give her a fine house in London.  And don’t you think our Wenna would fascinate everybody with her mouselike ways and her nice small steps?  And if they did have any trouble, wouldn’t she be better to have somebody with her not timid and anxious and pettifogging, but somebody who wouldn’t be cast down, but make her as brave as himself?”

Miss Mabyn was a shrewd young woman, and she saw that her mother’s quick, imaginative, sympathetic nature was being captivated by this picture.  She determined to have her as an ally.

“And don’t you see, mother, how it all lies within her reach?  Harry Trelyon is in love with her:  there was no need for him to say so.  I knew it long before he did.  And she—­why, she has told him now that she cares for him; and if I were he, I know what I’d do in his place.  What is there in the way?  Why, a—­a sort of understanding.”

“A promise, Mabyn,” said the mother.

“Well, a promise,” said the girl desperately, and coloring somewhat.  “But it was a promise given in ignorance:  she didn’t know—­how could she know?  Everybody knows that such promises are constantly broken.  If you are in love with somebody else, what’s the good of your keeping the promise?  Now, mother, won’t you argue with her?  See here:  if she keeps her promise, there’s three people miserable.  If she breaks it, there’s only one; and I doubt whether he’s got the capacity to be miserable.  That’s two to one, or three to one, is it?  Now, will you argue with her, mother?”

“Mabyn, Mabyn,” the mother said with a shake of the head, but evidently pleased with the voice of the tempter, “your fancy has run away with you.  Why, Mr. Trelyon has never proposed to marry her.”

“I know he wants to,” said Mabyn confidently.

“How can you know?”

“I’ll ask him and prove it to you.”