Dr. INGRAM'S house was almost outside the town, and thus far the two girls went together. At the garden-gate they stopped; Mabel ran indoors, after a hasty good-bye, and Jean pursued her solitary way.
Dutton was a good two miles from Dulveriford. Jean had permission to go to and fro, by the path through meadows and fields; not by the high road. She turned into the meadows directly after quitting the town, and went onward in a quick steadfast fashion, not dallying. This does not mean the absence of enjoyment. Jean had in her nature intense capabilities of enjoyment; and the sights and sounds of country life always thrilled her with a keen delight, which custom could not deaden.
Now and again she would pause for a few seconds to listen to the song of some little bird, to study the markings of a butterfly as it zigzagged past, to watch the contented munching of a pretty young cow. There were a good many cows in one field, and a good many horses in the next. Fear in connection with animals was a feeling unknown to Jean. She did not, however, linger long for anything.
Jean at sixteen was simply the child of nine expanded. The straight supple form was unchanged, only taller; the slim sunburnt hands were only longer and more capable. The greenish-brown eyes were serious as ever, with their old power of shining under excitement.
She was not "plain" now; the delicate straight features would admit of no such description; but neither was she beautiful; and "pretty" was a term which nobody could think of in connection with the severe simplicity of Jean's outlines, dress, and manner. People generally called her "uncommon;" a safe word which might admit of anything.
No change had taken place in Jean's manner of life. It had been a continuous going on in the old lines; the harder part of her studiously cultivated, the softer part stamped down and driven inward. She had been trained in a splendid mastery of principle over inclination; she had been taught any amount of self-repression and self-control; body and mind had been well and wisely handled. But training and cultivation of the heart's affections had not been equally prominent. Mr. Trevelyan was always just and even, always entirely high-principled; and Madame Collier was always practical. Neither of the two was in manner gentle or loving.
Had it not been for three definite outlets, Jean's softer and more affectionate side would have been walled up and subjected to a slow starvation. These three were—her passionate and absorbing love for Oswald; her quiet friendship with Cyril; her interest in the sick and needy of the parish. Jean's tenderness thus found a three-fold vent, and did not die; but at present it crept through those vents in a shamefaced and surreptitious fashion.
Jem Trevelyan might have supplied a fourth softening element. During years, however, he and Jean had seen little one of another. With her Ingram cousins, Mabel especially, Jean was on agreeable terms, and that was all; for the three girls, pleasant as they were, and popular in many quarters, touched no inner chord of Jean's being. As Mabel had said, Jean "really liked" very few people. "Really to like" in her case meant more than mere liking, and not "really to like" meant profound indifference.
Springing over her fourth stile, on the way homeward, she was arrested by an exclamation:
"Jean! That's jolly!"