Part 6, Chapter XLIII.
Another Chance.
“Only the sound of a voice,
Tender and sweet and low—
That made my heart rejoice
A year ago!”
James Crichton was spending a few days at home, with a view to the proposed oratorio at H—, which was to take place the week after Easter. He was, however, obliged to go up to town on most days, and was rather fond of calling in at the Bank on his way from the station and walking or driving back with his brother and Arthur. Perhaps, this practice had partly induced Hugh’s visit to Ashenfold on the day of the primrose picnic. For Hugh was not fond of walking down Oxley High-street with Jem. It was all very well, he thought, to know every man, woman, and child in Redhurst, and even to be on civil terms with the inhabitants of Oxley; but Jem carried things too far.
When they passed the greengrocer’s—“Well, Mr Coleman, how d’ye do? How’s your little girl? Gone to boarding-school?—hope she’ll get on with her French. Why, Hugh, there’s Kitty Morris—how dark her hair’s grown! She’s not as pretty as she used to be.”
“I never saw her before, to my knowledge,” Hugh would probably reply.
“Never saw Kitty—oh, she belongs to that little print-shop. She’s always standing at the door. I declare, there’s old Tomkins! I must just cross over and speak to him.”
A delay of two or three minutes listening to old Tomkins; and then, still worse, an elaborate bow to two Miss Harrisons—and, though Hugh knew that neither the popularity nor the familiarity of the “Oh, Mr Crichton, ’ow pleased ma will be to see you!” could be intended for him, he would grow desperate, and march on, while Jem would finish up by saying: