Even at a distance he could not but admire the grace and ease and
dignity of her carriage--the harmonious movement of a perfectly formed
figure; and as she drew nearer he kept asking himself (as if the
question were necessary) whether he would be able to take away a keen
mental photograph of those fine features--the clear and placid
forehead, the strongly marked eyebrows, the calm, self-reliant eyes, the
proud and yet not unsympathetic lines of the mouth. She came nearer; a
smile lit up her face; and there was a kind of radiance there, he
thought. He had leaped down from the wagonette: he went forward to meet
her; her hand was outstretched.
"I am sorry you are going," she said, frankly.
"And I am far more sorry to have to go," said he, and he held her hand a
little longer than there was any occasion for, until she gently withdrew
it. "There are so many things I should like to say to you, Miss Honnor;
but somehow they always escape you just when they're wanted; and I've
told you so often before that I am not likely to forget your kindness to
me up here--"
"Surely it is the other way about!" she said, pleasantly. "You have come
and cheered up my lonely hours--and been so patient--never
grumbled--never looked away up the hill as if you would have given your
life to be after the grouse; and in the drawing-room of an evening
you've always sung when I asked you--when I was inconsiderate enough to
ask you--"
"My goodness! Miss Honnor," he said, "if I had known you looked on it in
that light, I should have sung for you constantly, whether you asked or
not."
"Well, it's all over now," said she, "and I hope you are taking away
with you a pleasant memory of Strathaivron."
"I have spent the happiest days of my life here," he said; and then he
hesitated--was about to speak--hesitated again--and finally blurted out,
"Is there anything I can do for you in London, Miss Honnor?"
"No, thanks," she said. "By the way, you'll have an hour or two in
Inverness. You might go in to Mr. Watson's and ask him to send me out a
few more flies--if you have plenty of time, that is."
"I shall be delighted," said he, as if she had conferred the greatest
favor on him.
"Well, good-bye--I mustn't keep you late for the train."
"But we shall meet in the South?"
"I hope so," she said, in a very amiable and friendly fashion; and she
stood waiting there until he had got into the wagonette, and until the
horses had splashed their way across the ford; then she waved her hand
to him, and, with a parting smile, turned down the stream again, to
rejoin Robert and pick up her rod.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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