From that moment a cloud fell over the shining day,--not in reality, for the sun shone as bright as ever,--but upon the cousins, as they climbed the winding path. All its exquisite greenness and intervals of sunshine and shade,--all the play of light and colour about, the silvery gleam of the river, the soft, full verdure behind,--were lost upon them. A jar had struck into the magical harmony of the summer air. Mary, after the first moment, recovering herself from that pang of mortification and disappointment, began to struggle with herself for something to say. What could she say? Millicent had not been popular at Thornycroft. She had turned the heads of the young masters, and being new to the delights of conquest, had encouraged them to make fools of themselves, and had scandalised the entire community. She had tempted the curate, who was the brother of Miss Thorny, the head of the establishment at Thornycroft, into a flirtation, and broken his heart; and in consequence of this feat had left the school abruptly. ‘Perhaps she was not so very much to blame,’ Mary said to herself as she went painfully along by Ben’s side, watching his averted face. ‘Men are such fools;’--unconsciously she repeated in her innocence that sentiment which was the fruit of Millicent’s experience;--‘they will do anything for beauty.’ Probably it was their own doing. Could it be Millicent’s fault if they went crazy about her lovely face? Thus the good girl reasoned herself into tolerance. She made a great many little feints to call Ben’s attention,--cleared her throat, dropped her gloves, tried what she could, by every innocent artifice which occurred to her, to get him to resume the interrupted conversation;--but Ben, with something of the brutality of a big brother mingling, as was inevitable, with his brotherly kindness, marched on and took no notice. She had to make a faltering beginning herself without any aid from him. ‘Ben,’ she said, ‘you are not to think I did not like Millicent, or that she was not very nice. I daresay it was not her fault. Everybody made a fuss about her wherever she went;--she was so very pretty. I don’t think it could have been her fault.’ ‘Being pretty?’ said Ben, with the sneer that women hate. ‘You know I did not mean that,’ said Mary, injured. ‘I think it must have been the gentlemen’s own doing. Mr. Thorny was very silly to think she would ever have had him. I am sure that must have been his foolishness. She so pretty and so clever, and he only a common curate, you know;--just like other curates, nothing particular about him. It must have been his own fault.’ ‘I have not the advantage of knowing what you refer to,’ said Ben, with the haughtiest assumption of indifference, though his temper had taken fire and his pride was all in arms. A curate,--a common curate,--to have been associated anyhow, by any means whatever, with Millicent! In his heart he was furious, though he managed to keep some outward calm.