y, I own to the infatuation of beginning to
see that there is something fine in them. I suppose I shall be calling
Tom Robinson's hair golden, or tawny, or chestnut soon, and his inches
the proper height for a man. It is true," broke off Annie, with sudden,
unaccountable perversity, "I do hate great lumbering flaxen-haired
giants." She blushed furiously after she had indulged in the last
digression, and hastened to resume the main thread of the conversation.
"As for Tom Robinson's having little to say, I declare that my present
impression is that he says quite enough, and very much to the purpose
too. It was so nice and like a gentleman of him not to propose
immediately to buy Rose's picture when she talked rashly of her anxiety
that it should find a purchaser."

"I don't think Cyril Carey, with all his airs, would have shown so much
delicacy in the old days," said Rose.

"Or that Ned Hewett, though Ned has such a kind heart, would have been
able to avoid blundering into some such offer," remarked May.

There was one person who remained absolutely silent while the others
sang Tom Robinson's praises, and it might be her silence which called
her sisters' attention to her.

"I wonder what you would have, Dora?" said Rose, with several shades of
superciliousness in her voice and in her lifted-up nose.

"I cannot understand how you could be such a cruel, hard-hearted girl,"
May actually reproached her devoted slave.

"There is such a thing as being too particular," Annie had the coolness
to say. "I am sure I do not go in for indiscriminate marriages or for
falling in love," she added with lofty decision. "It has always been a
mystery to me what poor Fanny Russell could see to care for, or to do
anything save laugh at, in Cyril Carey. I hope the elderly 'competition
wallah,' or commissioner, or whatever he is, whom she is going to marry,
has more sense as well as more money. For her marriage was arranged,
though the news had not reached England, mother writes, before the
tidings of Colonel Russell's death came. But when a man who can act as
Tom Robinson has acted crosses a woman's path and pays her the
compliment of asking her to be his wife, I do think she should be
careful what she answers."

Dora stared as if she were losing her senses. Were they laughing at her
still? Could they be in earnest? If so, how was it possible for them to
be so flagrantly inconsistent and unjust? She could only utter a single
exclamation