Nell flashed upon him a look of supreme contempt.
“I don’t do this because I am good, but because I am angry and worried,” she said, glancing at the broom in her hand. “I could have sent some one to sweep out Mrs. Corbett’s cottage; there are plenty of people about here poor enough to be glad to do it for a few pence. I do it because I am miserable and want to make a martyr of myself!”
Now Clifford liked her even better for this show of spirit than he had done for her courage. It removed her, he felt, out of the gray-faced ranks of sour women who go through rounds of district-visiting as a duty oppressive to themselves and still more oppressive to the unfortunate people they visit.
“There,” ended Nell, with one last defiant, flourishing sweep of the broom as she returned to the door, “now you do really know me better than you thought!”
“And like you better too!” cried Clifford in a louder voice, as she disappeared through the doorway.
CHAPTER VI.
For some distance on the road to Stroan the delicious glow cast upon him by this stimulating conversation lasted and made Clifford as happy as a bird.
But when the irregular outline of the old-fashioned town grew more defined under the September sky, and the meeting with Jordan and Conybeare grew nearer, he had to concern himself with the manner in which he should get out of the difficulties which his stay under the roof of the Blue Lion had brought upon him.
What had they heard and what would they believe?
He had not to ask himself these questions long, for before he reached the town he came upon Jordan with an easel, a sketch-book and a pipe, and Conybeare with a strapful of books and a white umbrella.