"No. Were you there?" said Preston.
"Everybody was there — except you."
"And Daisy? Were _you_ there, Daisy?"
"Certainly," Mrs. Sandford responded. "Everybody else could
have been better missed."
"I did not know you went there," said Preston, in something so
like a growl that Mrs. Sandford lifted her eyes to look at
him.
"I do not wonder you are jealous," she said composedly.
"Jealous!" said Preston, with growl the second.
"You had more reason than you knew."
Preston grumbled something about the hops being "stupid
places." I kept carefully still.
"Daisy, did _you_ go?"
I looked up, and said yes.
"Whom did you dance with?"
"With everybody," said Mrs. Sandford. "That is, so far as the
length of the evening made it possible. Blue and grey, and all
colours."
"I don't want you to dance with everybody," said Preston, in a
more undertone growl.
"There is no way to prevent it," said Mrs. Sandford, "but to
be there and ask her yourself."
I did not thank Mrs. Sandford, privately for this suggestion;
which Preston immediately followed up by enquiring "if we were
going to the hop to-night?"
"Certainly," Mrs.
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