Nature, sincerity, and simplicity conquered all trammels of formal custom. She held out her hand to him.
"I thank you very much, Mr. Halifax. If I wanted help I would ask you; indeed I would."
"Thank YOU. Good-night."
He pressed the hand with reverence—and was gone. I saw Miss March look after him: then she turned to speak and smiled with me. A light word, an easy smile, as to a poor invalid whom she had often pitied out of the fulness of her womanly heart.
Soon I followed John into the parlour. He asked me no questions, made no remarks, only took his candle and went up-stairs.
But, years afterwards, he confessed to me that the touch of that hand—it was a rather peculiar hand in the "feel" of it, as the children say, with a very soft palm, and fingers that had a habit of perpetually fluttering, like a little bird's wing—the touch of that hand was to the young man like the revelation of a new world.
CHAPTER XII
The next day John rode away earlier even than was his wont, I thought. He stayed but a little while talking with me. While Mrs. Tod was bustling over our breakfast he asked her, in a grave and unconcerned manner, "How Mr. March was this morning?" which was the only allusion he made to the previous night's occurrences.
I had a long, quiet day alone in the beech-wood, close below our cottage, sitting by the little runnel, now worn to a thread with the summer weather, but singing still. It talked to me like a living thing.