"I did not mean to be naughty. I will try not to mind losing him. But I liked Lord Ravenel so much—and he was so fond of me."
"Child"—and her father himself could not help smiling at the simplicity of her speech—"it is often easiest to lose those we are fond of and who are fond of us, because, in one sense, we never can really lose them. Nothing in this world, nor, I believe, in any other, can part those who truly and faithfully love."
I think he was hardly aware how much he was implying, at least not in its relation to her, else he would not have said it. And he would surely have noticed, as I did, that the word "love," which had not been mentioned before—it was "liking," "fond of," "care for," or some such round-about, childish phrase—the word "love" made Maud start. She darted from one to the other of us a keen glance of inquiry, and then turned the colour of a July rose.
Her attitude, her blushes, the shy tremble about her mouth, reminded me vividly, too vividly, of her mother twenty-eight years ago.
Alarmed, I tried to hasten the end of our conversation, lest, voluntarily or involuntarily, it might produce the very results which, though they might not have altered John's determination, would almost have broken his heart.
So, begging her to "kiss and make friends," which Maud did, timidly, and without attempting further questions, I hurried the father and daughter into the house; deferring for mature consideration, the question whether or not I should trouble John with any too-anxious doubts of mine concerning her.
As we drove back through Norton Bury, I saw that while her mother and Lady Oldtower conversed, Maud sat opposite rather more silent than her wont; but when the ladies dismounted for shopping, she was again the lively independent Miss Halifax,
"Standing with reluctant feet,
Where womanhood and childhood meet;"
and assuming at once the prerogatives and immunities of both.
Her girlish ladyship at last got tired of silks and ribbons, and stood with me at the shop-door, amusing herself with commenting on the passers-by.