“You can frame the original; it must be better than my copy,” said Nancy, arranging her leaves. Matilda looked at her with an impatience scarcely to be restrained; but she remembered that her Ladyship had taken notice of the rubbish, and shrugged her shoulders over the strange fancies of the gentlefolks. Nancy was just the same as they were. She might have been born in that rank of life herself, she took such fancies. Matilda was thankful, as she went on with her hemming, that no such nonsense had ever occupied _her_. But to know all the details of the interview pleased her much, and she would have sat all day long stitching and listening, had not her sister commanded her, later in the afternoon, to get her hat and come out to see the sunset. “Oh, the sunset! a great deal of good that will do me; and not half my chemises done yet,” Matilda murmured to herself, but she obeyed Nancy, who indeed did not like to be disobeyed. They took the usual walk down through the village to the Hall gates, and by the stile on the left hand, the same stile over which they had come the first day they met Lucy. Since then there had always been the excitement of some possible encounter to anticipate, and as this idea occurred to her, Matilda’s bosom swelled with natural exultation to think how entirely they had got into high life. Sir John and her Ladyship had become, as it were, their daily bread. If dear father had but known! A sunset is a fine thing no doubt; but if you think of it, after all, it is not much of a sight, a thing that happens almost every day, and costs nobody a penny; a thing that the very poorest tramp may enjoy as well as you. To think how many people there are that will gaze and gaze at such a thing, and look as if they never could have enough of it! Matilda was more clever; she saw it at a glance, and did not require to look again; and, indeed, it was very hard not to believe that it was affectation on Nancy’s part to look at it so long. Matilda looked round her. There was not much to see, but it is astonishing how much you can see when your wits are about you. The spot where Nancy and her sister were standing was quite near the avenue, and as Matilda, with her mind and eyes unoccupied, looked out for something to amuse her, she suddenly was aware of two people walking up and down in what might be called the side aisle of the avenue, under the shadow of the trees, which still were rich in autumn foliage. This “took her attention” immediately; for who could it be but a pair of lovers, wandering up and down in intimate intercourse; and what is there in heaven or earth more attractive to a young woman than a pair of lovers? This sight woke Matilda out of the indifference into which the sunset had thrown her. She peered through the bushes with the liveliest interest and sympathy, not wishing to act the part of eavesdropper--and, indeed, she was too far off for that--but with the most purely benevolent regard, doing as she would be done by.