At this she was scared and offended. "Oh; keep that for the Queen!" cried
she, turning scarlet, and tossing her fair head into the air, like a
startled stag; and she drew her hand away quickly and decidedly, though
not roughly. He stammered a lowly apology--in the very middle of it she
said quietly, "Good-bye, Mr. Hardie," and swept, with a gracious little
curtsey, through the doorway, leaving him spell-bound.


And so the virginal instinct of self-defence carried her off swiftly and
cleverly. But none too soon; for, on entering the house, that external
composure her two mothers Mesdames Dodd and Nature had taught her, fell
from her like a veil, and she fluttered up the stairs to her own room
with hot cheeks, and panted there like some wild thing that has been
grasped at and grazed. She felt young Hardie's lips upon the palm of her
hand plainly; they seemed to linger there still; it was like light but
live velvet This, and the ardent look he had poured into her eyes, set
the young creature quivering. Nobody had looked at her so before, and no
young gentleman had imprinted living velvet on her hand. She was alarmed,
ashamed, and uneasy. What right had he to look at her like that? What
shadow of a right to go and kiss her hand? He could not pretend to think
she had put it out to be kissed; ladies put forth the back of the hand
for that, not the palm. The truth was he was an impudent fellow, and she
hated him now, and herself too, for being so simple as to let him talk to
her: mamma would not have been so imprudent when she was a girl.

She would not go down, for she felt there must be something of this kind
legibly branded on her face: "Oh! oh! just look at this young lady! She
has been letting a young gentleman kiss the palm of her hand; and the
feel has not gone off yet; you may see that by her cheeks."