‘Did you like it?’
‘Yes, Ma’am.’
But it was a very matter-of-course sort of Yes, and disappointed Miss Jane, who thought he would have been charmed with the ‘Swiss Family Robinson.’
Ellen spoke: ‘Oh yes, Alfred, you know you did like it. I heard you laughing to yourself at Ernest and the shell of soup. And Harold reads that; and ’tis so seldom he will look at a book.’
Jane did not like this quite as well as if Alfred had spoken up more; but she dived into her basket again, and brought out a neat little packet of green leaves, with some strawberries done up in it, and giving a little smile, she made sure that it would be acceptable.
Ellen thanked vehemently, and Alfred gave feeble thanks; but, unluckily, he had so set his mind upon raspberries, that he could not enjoy the thought of anything else. It was a sickly distaste for everything, and Miss Selby saw that he was not as much pleased as she meant him to be; she looked at him wistfully, and, half grieved, half impatient, she longed to know what he would really like, or if he were positively ungrateful. She was very young, and did not know whether it was by his fault or her mistake that she had failed to satisfy him.
Puck had raced up after her, and had come poking and snuffling round Alfred. She would have called him away lest he should be too much for one so weak, but she saw Alfred really did enjoy this: his hand was in the long rough coat, and he was whispering, ‘Poor Puck,’ and ‘Good little doggie;’ and the little hairy rummaging creature, with the bright black beads of eyes gleaming out from under his shaggy hair, was doing him more good than her sense and kindness, or Ellen’s either.
She turned to the window, and said to Ellen, ‘What a wild-looking lad that is on the bridge!’
‘Yes, Miss Jane,’ said Ellen; ‘I was quite afraid he would frighten you.’
‘Well, I was surprised,’ said Jane; ‘I was afraid he might speak to me; but then I knew I was too near friends for harm to come to me;’ and she laughed at her own fears. ‘How ragged and wretched he looks! Has he been begging?’