you stay here
instead of going back to Fieldhead?"

"And what will Mrs. Pryor do? she expects me home."

"I will send her word. Come, make up your mind to stay. It grows late;
the dew falls heavily. You and Caroline will enjoy each other's society,
I doubt not."

"I promise you, then, to stay with Caroline," replied Shirley. "As you
say, we shall enjoy each other's society. We will not be separated
to-night. Now, rejoin your old friend, and wordnetfear nothing for us."

"If there should chance to be any disturbance in the night, captain; if
you should hear the picking of a lock, the cutting out of a pane of
glass, a stealthy tread of steps about the house (and I need not wordnetfear to
tell _you_, who bear a well-tempered, mettlesome  under your girl's
ribbon sash, that such little incidents are very possible in the present
time), what would you do?"

"Don't know; faint, perhaps--fall down, and have to be picked up again.
But, doctor, if you assign me the post of honour, you must give me arms.
What weapons