“Give me five minutes of your time and attention, Miss Dill,” said Hunter, “on a point for which your father has referred me to your counsel.”
“To mine?”
“Yes,” said he, smiling at her astonishment. “We want your quick faculties to come to the aid of our slow ones. And here's the case.” And in a few sentences he put the matter before her, as he had done to her father. While he thus talked, they had strolled out into the garden, and walked slowly side by side down one of the alleys.
“Poor Tom!—poor fellow!” was all that Polly said, as she listened; but once or twice her handkerchief was raised to her eyes, and her chest heaved heavily.
“I am heartily sorry for him—that is, if his heart be bent on it—if he really should have built upon the scheme already.”
“Of course he has, sir. You don't suppose that in such lives as ours these are common incidents? If we chance upon a treasure, or fancy that we have, once in a whole existence, it is great fortune.”
“It was a brief, a very brief acquaintance,—a few hours, I believe. The—What was that? Did you hear any one cough there?”
“No, sir; we are quite alone. There is no one in the garden but ourselves.”
“So that, as I was saying, the project could scarcely have taken a very deep root, and—and—in fact, better the first annoyance than a mistake that should give its color to a whole lifetime. I'm certain I heard a step in that walk yonder.”
“No, sir; we are all alone.”