“Come off your hobby, Lucy,” cried he, “and speak to me like a woman and like my niece.  If this is your objection, overcome it for my sake.”

“I would, dear,” said Lucy, “but it is only one of my objections, and by no means the most serious.”

On being invited to come at once to the latter, Lucy hesitated.  “Would not that be unamiable on my part?  Mr. Talboys has just paid me the highest compliment a gentleman can pay a lady; it is for me to decline him courteously, not abuse him to his friend and representative.”

“No humbug, Lucy, if you please; I am in no humor for it.”

“We should all be savages without a little of it.”

“I am waiting.”

“Then pledge me your word of honor no word of what I now say to the disadvantage of poor Mr. Talboys shall ever reach him.”

“You may take your oath of that.”

“Then he is a detractor, a character I despise.”

“Who does he detract from?  I never heard him.”

“From all his superiors—­in other words, from everybody he meets.  Did you ever know him fail to sneer at Mr. Hardie?”

“Oh, that is the offense, is it?”

“No, it is the same with others; there, the other day, Mr. Dodd joined us on horseback.  He did not dress for the occasion.  He had no straps on.  He came in a hurry to have our society, not to cut a dash.  But there was Mr. Talboys, who can only do this one thing well, and who, thanks to his servant, had straps on, sneering the whole time at Mr. Dodd, who has mastered a dozen far more difficult and more honorable accomplishments than putting on straps and sitting on horses.  But he is always backbiting and sneering; he admires nothing and nobody.”

“He has admired you ever since he saw you.”

“What! has he never sneered at me?”

“Never! ungrateful girl, never.”

“How humiliating!  He takes me for his inferior.  His superiors he always sneers at.  If he had seen anything good or spirited in me, he could not have helped detracting from me.  Is not this a serious reason—­that I despise the person who now solicits my love, honor and obedience?  Well, then, there is another—­a stronger still.  But perhaps you will call it a woman’s reason.”

“I know.  You don’t like him—­that is, you fancy you don’t, and can’t.”

“No, uncle, it is not that I don’t like him.  It is that I HATE HIM.”

“You hate him?” and Mr. Fountain looked at her to see if it was his niece Lucy who was uttering words so entirely out of character.

“I am but a poor hater.  I have but little practice; but, with all the power of hating I do possess, I hate that Mr. Talboys.  Oh, how delicious it is to speak one’s mind out nice and rudely.  It is a luxury I seldom indulge in.  Yes, uncle,” said Lucy, clinching her white teeth, “I hate that man, and I did hope his proposal would come from himself; then there would have been nothing to alloy my quiet satisfaction at mortifying one who is so ready to mortify others.  But no, he has bewitched you; and you take his part, and you look vexed; so all my pleasure is turned to pain.”