“Pray do stop,” she said, “if you are not very busy, and tell us if that is Woodlands?”
The man turned back and looked at her with astonishment.
“Dear heart, young lady, but you must be a stranger in these parts—that Woodlands, that? It would be but a humble post indeed to open the park gates to them good people, a very decent family too, I mean to say nothing disrespectful, but Woodlands, bless your heart, Woodlands is one of the principalest houses in the whole countryside. Do you see that beautiful great house standing on the height there, with the broad terrace and the pleasure-grounds sloping down to the river, and them grand woods on each side, shutting out the summer’s sun and the winter’s blasts?—that’s Woodlands, and it’s not every day you will see its like; but you are pleasant-looking young ladies to my mind, and if you have a fancy to see Woodlands, though it’s not to every one I would say as much, I have no objections to unlock the gates for you, for once and away.”
“And are the gates always locked?” Leila timidly inquired; then added, “papa told us to go there.”
“No, no, my young lady; it’s not papas or mammas either that can give that permission. As long as my head’s above ground, there shall no promiscuous company enter there; but never vex your sweet heart,” he continued, more mildly, (observing Leila’s expression of blank dismay,) “never vex your heart; you shall see the place for all that;” then added with a sigh, “but Woodlands has gotten a new master, one Squire Howard, they tell me—a fine man from the Indies. Heaven send he may be a kind one; but they tell queer stories about him too. It was I that showed the two gentlemen that came to settle about it all over the place, and they said something of his having lived in a desert island, a Robinson Crusoe sort of an affair that I could not make out at all; but if we are to have a master from a desert island, I hope he will keep more company about him than his man Friday, or Woodlands will be a changed place.”
“My papa had no man Friday with him in the island,” Leila meekly answered; “but we do not live there now. We came into the world last May, and our man-servant’s name is John; in the island we had only Nurse—look, she is coming up to us now, and she is to be my papa’s housekeeper at Woodlands.”
The ruddy face of the countryman became actually pale, as he pulled off his hat, and stood immovable before Leila.
“My master’s daughter; it’s not possible. Surely——”
Matilda, who from the moment she had joined them, had continued walking with the others, and had hitherto remained wonderfully silent, could now no longer restrain herself.
“You may indeed look surprised,” she said, “for you have made a fine mistake. Yes, it is quite true: you have all this time been speaking to Miss Howard. She is the young mistress of Woodlands. And now will you open the gates?”