While staying with the Tyrrells one of my chief occupations had been making fun of this young man, a fact of which I believe he was blissfully unconscious.

Perhaps experience had made him incredulous as to the indifference any young lady might feel to his special favour; or it might have been conceit; I will not pretend to decide which.

But when he drew near me, murmuring (shall I say lisping ?), "Oh, do come; pray, take pity on us--we have missed you so dreadfully," I am sure he thought he did enough to make any reasonable young woman desire to leave Hillsbro' on the instant.
But I did not want to leave Hillsbro', I felt a pang of keen pain at the very suggestion; yet at the same moment an idea came into my mind that it might be a good thing that I should leave it for a time.

I hesitated, asked Grace when she intended returning to London, and, while we were parleying about the matter, Mopsie returned.

During the remainder of the visit the little girl listened earnestly to everything we said on the subject, and when I parted from my friends at the gate, leaving it undecided whether I should go with them to London or not, Mopsie burst into tears and clung to my neck.
"Do not go with them," she said; "they cannot love you as we do." "Mopsie, my pet," I said, "don't be a little goose.