His manner changes the moment he sees the genuine anxiety in the young face looking up at him, and he answers gently, "O, yes, I think so, certainly; and even if not then, I am very sure it must be dead now. I wish too that I could have been quicker, though for my own personal comfort I was rather disastrously so. I am afraid it is no use going after them now. It is a game little dog: does it belong to you?"
"Yes, the wretched little creature! Who would have thought of her going off hunting like that? I told her to lie down too."
An amused twinkle comes into the young man's eyes. "You could hardly expect her to do that, I think," he says, "especially in a place like this. It would not be in dog's nature to do it, you know. Have you been here long?"
"Well, yes, I suppose I have," says Doris, glancing furtively at her hat, which is wholly out of her reach. "My book was interesting, and I forgot all about time and Vic too. I suppose it was hardly reasonable to expect her to keep quiet all that time."
"I think so," says her companion with a smile. "Let me put in a word for her and intreat your pardon on her behalf. But dear me, how thoughtlessly I am behaving! allowing you to stand bareheaded in the sun and never making an attempt to recover your hat for you."
"It is rather hot," remarks Doris somewhat reproachfully. "The sun penetrates even this shady nook after a time;" and then she watches with keen interest the jumps and snatches which are being made at the refractory hat. "We call this our 'parlour,'" the girl goes on. "Isn't it pretty here? But I really think you had better get up on one of those stumps. I don't think you will ever get it down with your stick."
This advice being followed, the hat is captured in due course of time and handed to its owner. Then jumping down he says, "O, your 'parlour' you call it? Well, I am sure it is a very lovely one. How beautiful those shadows are! Do you know these woods well? do you often come here?"
"Yes, pretty often," replies the girl briskly. "Have you ever been here before?"
"O yes, I know the place well; in fact I spent a good part of my boyhood here. Will you think me very unpardonably curious if I ask your name, and how long you have been living in Edendale? I know Sir Charles Ferrars, and I don't remember his having ever spoken of any new arrivals; and he generally keeps himself au courant with the affairs of the neighbourhood, though he seldom honours it with his presence. That is why I ask."
"No, I don't suppose he would have spoken of us even if he had been at the Court when we came here," says Doris a little bitterly. "We didn't arrive here with a flourish of trumpets exactly. But I am not paying attention to your questions. My name is Doris Merivale, and we have been here, let me see, rather more than four months, or about four, I think. Now, I think you ought to tell me your name. One good turn deserves another, you know."