"And of course I said no," continued Lucy, severely ignoring this remark, "and that I had only been a little startled by the horse. He asked me if I knew who it was, and when I said 'no', he looked as if he were going to tell me, but instead he asked if I knew the way to the railway station."
"Now don't say that you told him and that he raised his hat and went off," said Leslie, with mock earnestness.
Lucy laughed, but said, shyly: "Well, I told him, but he didn't go—just at once. He asked me one or two other questions—which was the nearest village, and so on—and, of course, I had to answer that I was a stranger, and then we both laughed, or rather he smiled, for he seemed very grave and preoccupied. I think he was a lawyer or something of that sort. He looked like a business man; and presently he said, as if accounting for his being there, that he had walked from White Place—that was the house on the hill-side—and that he was going back to London, and—and—well, that's all!"
"Are you quite sure that was all?" asked Leslie, with burlesque severity.
Lucy's fair face flushed.
"Y-yes. Oh!—I'd got a fern-root in my hand; I meant to put in the garden below the window—and he noticed it, and said that he wished they had them in London, and—well, I offered it to him—"
"Lucy!"
Lucy jumped up.
"Really—really and honestly, Leslie, I did it without thinking! and he took it at once without any fuss or nonsense. You see, he was a gentleman," she added, with delicious simplicity.
Leslie shook her head with a smile.