Mrs. Woodward, as she watched the riders pass down the road, told herself that Alice was one in a thousand, and deserved to be happy, as no doubt she would be if she married Paul Macleod, who was so very nice-looking. This point of good looks was one upon which Mrs. Woodward laid great insistence, and it enabled her to spend the next hour or two in finishing a sentimental novel in which the lovers, after sternly rejecting the counsels of parents and guardians, were rewarded in the third volume with £50,000 a year and a baronetcy. For, like most mothers, poor Mrs. Woodward was sadly at sea on the matrimonial question. Its romantic side appealed to her fancy, its business side to her experience, since no woman can have done her duty in the married state for a quarter of a century without seeing that where personal pleasure has been the motive power in one point, sheer personal self-abnegation has been the motive in ten.
Meanwhile the cousins, after cantering round the Row, had reined in their horses for a walk. Alice rode well, and the exercise had brought an unwonted animation to her appearance. Jack, on the other hand, was a tall, burly young fellow, a trifle over-dressed, but otherwise unobjectionable, looked his best, with a heartwhole admiration for his companion on his honest face. What a pretty couple they would make, thought an old spinster, taking her constitutional in Kensington Gardens, and began straightway to dream of a certain hunt ball where someone had danced with her five times before supper. How many times afterwards she had never had to confess, even to her twin sister; thanks to the extras, which, of course, need not count. And yet nothing had come of it! And just as she got so far in her reminiscences Alice was saying to Jack pleasantly, "I shall miss these rides of ours, Jack, shan't you?"
"Why should you miss them?" he asked anxiously, for there was a superior wisdom in her tone which he knew and dreaded. "I'm going down to Heddingford when you go. We can ride there."
"But we are going to Scotland first; didn't mamma tell you? We are to stay with Captain Macleod."
Poor Jack's heart gave a great throb of pain.
"Macleod?" he echoed, "that is the tall, handsome fellow, isn't it, who used to hang round you before I came up from the works?"
This allusion to Paul's good looks was unfortunate, since Jack's were not improved by the sudden flush which crimsoned even his ears.
"I don't know what you mean by hanging round," retorted the girl, quickly. "It is a very vulgar expression."
This again was unwise, for Jack, knowing his strong point was not refinement, felt instantly superior to such trivialities, and took the upper hand.
"Call it what you like, Ally. You know perfectly well what I mean, and what he meant, too."