"The grass was so wet, you know. I blame myself for it all; and indeed there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for the dear old creature. She was my only companion and friend for many a year." "Won’t you find it very dull going away all by yourselves?" "Well, no. She is never dull. I never tire of her society a moment—she is so full of vivacity and kindliness and funny stories; but I do not like the idea of our going away anywhere alone. Hitherto, you know, I have always been in a manner compelled to go by an engagement." "Bring her down to St. Mary-Kirby, and let Dove and you go about with her." "Thank you. You have told me so much of that quiet little valley, and the quiet way of living there, that I should feel like an evil spirit invading paradise." "Now, now—you are at it again," he said, laughing. "I won’t have you malign our honest country folks like that. My mother would make you her daughter: she has a general faculty for making pets of everybody. And my father would give you a touch of the old squirelike courtesy he sometimes brings out when he is very grand and polite to some London young lady who comes down to see us." She only smiled in reply—a trifle sadly. "I should like to see a little of that peaceful sort of life—perhaps even to try it. Day after day to be always the same, always meeting the same people, always looking out on the same trees and fields and river, and hoping only for some change in the weather, or for a favourable turn to the fortunes of one’s pet hero. But then other cares must come. That gentle little Dove, for instance—isn’t she sitting just now wondering when you will come to see her, and getting quite vexed because you stay so long away?" "You seem to have a great affection for Dove," he said. "Haven’t you?" "Well, of course; who could help it?" "If I were a man I should not try to help it; I should be prouder of the love of such a girl than of anything under heaven." Such conversations are not common between young unmarried people, but neither of these two seemed to consider it strange that they should so talk; for, indeed, Annie Brunel assumed towards Will an amusingly matter-of-fact, kindly, almost maternal manner—so much so that, without hesitation she would have told him that a little more attention to the brushing of his rough brown hair and moustache might not have been inappropriate before visiting a lady. Sometimes he was amused, sometimes tantalized by this tone. He was a man verging towards thirty, who had all his wits about him, who had seen plenty of the world, and knew far more of its ways and beliefs and habits than he would have liked to reveal to his companion then beside him; and he could scarcely refrain from laughing at the airs of superior worldly wisdom which the young actress gave herself, revealing in the assumption the charming simplicity of her character.