This did not seem very lucid. Tom went on:
“I was never called ‘Mr. Pinder’ in my life till you called me so. Then I was very glad and very proud. It put new thoughts into my mind. It was like a ‘new birth,’ as the chapel-folk might say. But it has done its work now, and I should like once more to be plain ‘Tom’ to you.”
“Well, plain Tom then be it, if that will please you; but we really must be going, or we shall miss Lucy. Hark! many of the people must have left the ground already. I can hear them talking as they go past the mill. Bring along the basket, Tom, and don’t spill more than you can help.”
“I don’t think I should take the flowers to Lucy in the field. People would say you favoured Lucy more than other folk’s children.”
“And what do I care what people say; I do like Lucy more than any other girl in the village.”
“I was not exactly thinking of what you might care about miss. I was thinking more of what Lucy would feel.”
“Oh! Of course,” said Dorothy, not without a suspicion of pettishness in her tone. Really, this young man was too frank. To say exactly what one thinks is no doubt commendable in the abstract. But then we should be careful to think only what will fall pleasingly on the ear, if we wish to please. “Oh! of course,” said Dorothy.
Tom felt he had blundered. “The air comes very sweet and fresh from the hills” he said, to change the subject. “How clear the stream looks to-night and how softly it warbles over the stones.”
“Yes,” assented Dorothy, “I love the river when its waters are crystal as now; but you know it is so seldom we see it so bright and sparkling. The dye-water from the mill makes it all the colours of the rainbow, but you take care the colours are dirty enough.”
“There’s something I wanted to tell you, Miss Dorothy,” said Tom, after a lull in the conversation which both felt to be embarrassing.