"We are all so fond of you ... even the Rector, though he is not likely to show it. Pauline is perhaps more like me. Her impulsiveness comes from me."
"Ought I to talk to the Rector about our engagement?" Guy asked.
"Oh, no, no ... it would disturb him, and I don't think he'll admit that you are engaged. In fact he said something about children: but I would rather ... at least, of course, you are children. But Margaret says you can't be quite a child or you would not be in love with Pauline. And now if you go along the Fairfield road, you'll meet her. But that is only an exception. Not often. I think to-day she might be disappointed if you didn't meet her. And come to lunch, of course. Poetry is a little precarious, but at any rate for the present we needn't talk about the future. I wish your mother were still alive. I think she would have loved Pauline."
"She would have adored her," said Guy fervently.
"And your father? Of course you'll bring him to tea, when he comes to stay with you. That will be charming ... yes, charming. Now hurry, or you'll miss her."
Guy had no words to tell Mrs. Grey of the devotion she had inspired; but all the way down the Fairfield road he blessed her and hoped that somehow the benediction would make itself manifest. Then, far away, coming over the brow of a hill he saw Pauline. It was one of those hills with a suggestion of the sea behind them, so sharply are they cut against the sky. This was one of those hills that in childhood had thrilled him with promise of the faintly imaginable; and even now he always approached such a hill with a dream and surmise of new beauty. Yet more wonderful than any dream was the reality of Pauline coming towards him over the glistening road. She was shy when he met her, and the answers she gave to his eager questions were so softly spoken that Guy was half afraid of having exacted too much from her yesterday. Did she regret already the untroublous time before she knew him? Yet it was better that she should walk beside him in still unbroken enchantment, that the declaration of his love should not have damaged the wings seeming always unfolded for flight from earth: so would he wish to keep her always, that never this Psyche should be made a prisoner by him. The elusive quality of Pauline which was shared in a slighter degree by her sisters kept him eternally breathless, for she was immaterial as a cloud that flushes for an instant far away from the sunset. And yet she was made with too much of earth's simple beauty to be compared with clouds. Her sisters had the ghostly serenity and remoteness that might more appropriately be called elusive. Pauline gave more the effect of an earthly thing that transcends by the perfection of its substance even spirit; and rather was she seeming, though poised for airy regions, still sweetly content with earth. She had not been more elusive than eglantine overarching a deep lane at Midsummer, for he had pulled down the spray, and it was the fear of a petal falling too soon from the tremulous flowers that gave him this sense of awe as he walked beside her.
Yet once again Guy found his comparisons poor enough when he looked at Pauline, and he exclaimed despairingly:
"There are no words for you. I wanted to say to your mother what I thought about you. Oh, she was so charming."
"She is a darling," said Pauline. "And so is Father."
They were come to the stile where he and Margaret had watched their footprints on the snow.