“But that would be so very strange to me,” said Virginia, parrying this request. “Every one will call you Mr Lester. How tall Nettie is grown. Do you not think her very pretty?”
“Oh, she is pink, and white, and blue, and yellow; but she is like a little boy. There is not in her eyes the attraction, the coquetry, which I admire,” said Alvar, pointing his remark with a glance at his companion’s lucid, beaming, interested eyes, in which however there was little conscious coquetry.
“I am sorry to hear you admire coquettes,” was too obvious an answer to be resisted.
“Nay, it is the privilege of beauty,” said Alvar.
Virginia, like many impulsive people, was apt to recollect with a cold chill conversations by which at the time she had been entirely carried away. But on looking back at this one she liked it. Alvar’s dignity and grace of manner made his trifling compliments both flattering and respectful. His feelings, too, she thought, were evidently deep and tender; and how she pitied him for his solitary condition!
Chapter Eight.
A Day of Rest.
“Gaily the troubadour touched his guitar.”