“The young lady knew better than you,” I said, “and you ought to be much obliged to her for having probably saved your life, instead of being as cheeky as you are. If you were my young brother, I’d soon teach you manners!”
The boy looked at me with an air of surprise, but seemed indisposed to make any reply, whilst the young lady thanked me for having killed the viper.
“You don’t remember me, Mr Shepard?” she then said; “I was quite a little girl when we last met, about five years ago, and I have only just returned from Brussels, where I was at school. I was staying with my uncle, General Holloway, near Ringwood, when you came over to fish.”
I then remembered that, during a short visit to General Holloway’s, there was a pretty little girl staying at the house, who used to play and sing very well. I was very bashful at the time, and for the first day or two did not get on with her; but after that we became great friends.
“Surely you are not Helen Stanley,” I said, “who used to sing to me at General Holloway’s?”
“Yes, I am,” she replied, “but I have grown very much since then, and so have you. I’ve heard so much of you, and of your success at Woolwich. What a splendid thing it must be to pass examinations, and to be a soldier too!”
“Rather hard work, though,” I replied. “No one knows till they have tried it what there is to go through.”
“Oh, but see how much it does for a young man! Why, see the young men about here how awkward they are, how clumsily they walk and stand; they are quite different from a soldier. I’m so glad to have met you; and it’s lucky for Walter’s sake I did so, or the viper would have stung him.”
Helen Stanley was at this time about eighteen; but she was older in manner and style than she was in years. It is useless to attempt to describe to the reader a person who attracts us, or who wields an influence over us—the mere detail description of complexion, colour of hair, and of eyes, shape of mouth and nose, giving to a third person no more idea of the individual than if we said nothing. I can only speak, then, of Miss Stanley as a young lady who to me seemed very pretty—whose hand it was a pleasure to touch on meeting—whose society was a pleasure, and who seemed to call up in me all the better parts of my nature. I had not been five minutes talking to her before I knew that she was one who would produce an influence on me in the future.
“How does it happen that you are here?” I inquired.