TVYLDER'S HAJVD.
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bad melodrama. You have succeeded already in filling
Dorcas's mind with surmise and speculation, and do you
think the Gylingden people are either blind or dumb?
You are taking, I've told you again and again, the very
way to excite attention and gossip. What good can it
possibly do you? You'll not believe until it happens, and
when it does. you'd give your eyes you could undo it. It
is so like you."
"I have said how very kind I thought it of Dorcas to
propose it. I can't explain to her all my reasons for de-
clining; and to you I need not. 'But I cannot overcome
my repugnance — and I won't try."
"I wonder," said Stanley, vith a sly look of enquiry,
"that you who read the Bible — and a very good book it
is, no doubt — and believe in all sorts of things "—
"That will do, Stanley. I'm not so weak as you sup-
pose."
"You know, Radie, I'm a Sadducee, and that sort of
thing does not trouble me the least in the world. It is a
little cold here. May we go into the drawing-room?
You can't think how I hate this—house. We are al-
ways unpleasant in it."
This auspicious remark he made taking off his hat, and
placing it and his cane on her work-table:
But this was not a tempestuous conference by any means.
I don't know precisely what they talked about. I think
it was probably the pros and cons of that migration to
Brandon, against which Rachel had pronounced so firmly.
"I can't do it, Stanley. My motives are unintelligible
to you, I know, and you think me obstinate and stupid;
but, be I what I may, my objections are insurmountable.
And does it not strike you that my staying here, on the
contrary, would — would tend to prevent the kind of
conversation you speak of?"