“No, miss,—no, yer honer; many thanks for the same,” said Joan, drawing her cloak around her. “I couldn't eat a bit; my heart's heavy inside me. I 'll go back now.”
Kate tried to persuade her to take something, or, at least, to rest a little longer; but she was resolute, and eager to return.
“Shall we bear you company part of the way, then?” said Jack, with a look of half entreaty towards Kate.
“I shall be but too happy,” said Kate, while she turned the nearly completed sketch to the wall, but not so rapidly as to prevent Massingbred's catching a glimpse of it.
“How like!” exclaimed he, but only in a whisper audible to himself. “I didn't know that this also was one of your accomplishments.”
A little laugh and a saucy motion of her head was all her reply, while she went in search of her bonnet and shawl. She was back again in a moment, and the three now issued forth into the wood.
For all Jack Massingbred's boasted “tact,” and his assumed power of suiting himself to his company, he felt very ill at ease as he walked along that morning. “His world” was not that of the poor country girl at his side, and he essayed in vain to find some topic to interest her. Not so Kate Henderson. With all a woman's nice perception, and quite without effort, she talked to Joan about the country and the people, of whose habits she knew sufficient not to betray ignorance; and although Joan felt at times a half-suspicious distrust of her, she grew at length to be pleased with the tone of easy familiarity used towards her, and the absence of anything bordering on superiority.
Joan, whose instincts and sympathies were all with the humble class from which she sprung, described in touching language the suffering condition of the people, the terrible struggle against destitution maintained for years, and daily becoming more difficult and hopeless. It was like a shipwrecked crew reduced to quarter-rations, and now about to relinquish even these!
“And they are patient under all this?” asked Kate, with that peculiar accent so difficult to pronounce its meaning.
“They are, indeed, miss,” was the answer.