“He could not help himself; he was obliged to go with his uncle’s wife,” she told herself. But still it made her a little sad. It marked the social difference between them, as it were. If she had been his equal, and John had meant to make her his wife, he would assuredly have lingered to speak to her. As it was he could not help himself, but May sighed when she thought of it.
Then, when they reached home, Mrs. Churchill made herself purposely very unpleasant to her stepdaughter.
“That’s a very absurd hat of yours, May,” she said. “I don’t know what the folks in church would say to it.”
It was in truth a charming hat, though only suited to a lovely face. It became May exceedingly, and she had been conscious of this when she had started in the morning with her brothers; conscious perhaps of it when she saw John Temple’s gray eyes looking upward to the gallery, for she loved to think that she should seem fair in his sight, and now to hear it descried!
“I think it is a very pretty hat,” she answered, somewhat indignantly.
“To go on the stage with, perhaps, but not for a respectable farmer’s daughter to appear at church in,” continued Mrs. Churchill.
May slightly tossed her pretty head, and walked indignantly out of the room. She had no idea of leaving off wearing her new hat, which had just cost her two pounds, on account of her stepmother’s remarks. And immediately the early dinner was over she called to her two young brothers to go out for a walk with her, and wore the picture hat in spite of Mrs. Churchill.
During their afternoon ramble they went along the country lane where May Churchill had first met John Temple in the summer time, when she was gathering wild roses to make a wreath to place on poor young Phil Temple’s grave. It was autumn now, and the cobwebs on the grass and the chill in the breeze told of the shortening days. The wild roses were gone, and the meadow-sweet scented the air no longer, but there was a serene and sober beauty in the changing leaves, in the creeping brambles growing amid the hedge-rows. And quite suddenly the three young people encountered John Temple in this very lane. John had been thinking, also, of that first meeting when he had sat on the stile, and thought, smilingly, that this rural scene only wanted “a pretty milkmaid” to complete the picture. He remembered May as he had seen her thus, so fresh, so fair, in her white frock and her dainty basket of roses. And now with glad surprise he once more encountered her.
They smiled and clasped each other’s hands, but said very few words, and then John looked at the two boys.
“So these two young gentlemen are your brothers, I suppose?” he asked.