"
Her drawling Southern tongue lent a charm, he felt, to her naive
disclosures.
"Like all the others?" he repeated smiling. "Do you mean to tell me
that Reuben's piquant little granddaughter is a greater belle in the
neighbourhood than you are?"
"She has a way with them," said Blossom sweetly. "I don't know what it
is and I am sure she is a good, kind girl--but I sometimes think men
like her because she is so contrary. My Uncle Abel has almost lost his
head about her, yet she plays fast and loose with him in the cruelest
fashion."
"Oh, well, she'll burn her fingers some day, at her own fire, and then
she'll be sorry."
"I don't want her to be sorry, but I do wish she'd try just a little
to be kind--one day she promises to marry Abel and the next you'd think
she'd taken a liking to Jim Halloween."
"Perhaps she has a secret sentiment for the rector?" he suggested, to
pique her.
"But I don't believe he will marry anybody around here," she insisted,
while the colour flooded her face.
The discovery that she had once cherished--that she still cherished,
perhaps, a regard for the young clergyman, added a zest to the
adventure, while it freed his passion from the single restraint of which
he had been aware.
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