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'His name is Dalton, Miss Hartney went on with an insinuation of malicious triumph. "Cousin Bessie!" I cried, leaning forward with quick eagerness and interrupting her story, "Dalton, did you say?" "Yes, Ernest Dalton," she answered me quietly. "Ernest Dalton whom you now know, and who is the cause of your being with me to-day."
If I were you, Amelia, I would never marry any one who was not more faithful to me, than this, there will be little happiness in store for you, if you do; he has plainly slighted you, in giving cause for such vile rumours while I was in the town, and could hear of his unbecoming behaviour give him up child, he is altogether unworthy of you. Miss Hartney added, infusing something of a would-be sympathy and solicitude unto her shrill accents.
He called it 'stuff' and in his desire to suppress and condemn it, he was warmly supported by his maiden sister, who had long ago decided that Amey's husband should be entirely of her choosing, and should be one whose social position would restore to the Hartney family some of the prestige which they had lost through reverses.
'Go on, this is very comforting, and you seem to relish it. What else? "'What else? Miss Hartney repeated, with all the dainty sarcasm of a disappointed old maid. 'Well! since you will know, child, I may as well tell you the brave Mr. Dalton is not alone in the field; he has a powerful rival; one of those dark, heroic-looking Frenchmen of high birth and fierce tempers.
For awhile, however, all bade fair to progress favorably between the young people, some letters even had been exchanged between them, when one day Miss Hartney came sailing into the library with a covert light of triumph in her little piercing eyes, with the announcement to your mother, her father and myself, who were seated around the table with our different occupations, that she was 'going off for a few days, to Aunt Liddy's, and wanted to know whether we had 'any messages to send?
I looked at her vacantly for a moment, and falling back languidly in my seat, muttered faintly, "Go on." "Where was I?" she resumed, looking wistfully into the space between us; "Oh, yes where Miss Hartney pronounced Ernest Dalton's name so flourishingly your mother looked up at her with a blanched face when she said this, and asked: "'Do you know for certain that what you say is true?
'I am old enough now to know my own duty. I shall love, and marry whoever I please. "'Well! upon my word you don't mean to say so do you, Queen Amelia? Miss Hartney returned in cold irony. 'Well then, my dear, you had better be wider awake to your own interests, she went on, 'for your first attempt is going sadly against you already, poor child.
"'Aunt Liddy was asking me what would make a nice wedding present, girls; she expects to be called upon to make one very soon; the color crept into your mother's cheeks, and her brown hair almost touched the paper she wrote upon. 'I told her I would ask you, Miss Hartney added, pointedly, 'as you're likely to know more about modern tastes than I."
Dalton paying such attentions to a young lady while I was there as would convince anyone of the truth of the rumours that are afloat about him, she simpered out, half-defiantly. "'His sister, perhaps' your mother muttered, knocking her ivory pen-handle nervously against her white teeth. "'No, indeed nor his cousin neither, Miss Hartney retorted, with a covert little sneer.
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