“I noticed that he paid her a great deal of attention at church, and afterwards they paired off together quite naturally,” said he.
And that afternoon the heat and the midges and the dust were worse than ever.
Mr. Rayner complained on the day after this that I was looking paler than before, and threatened to have me sent back to my old room if I did not look brighter in two days from that date. Luckily for me, within those two days my spirits improved a little. The next day Haidee and I passed by Geldham Park in our walk, and saw over the fence Mr. Reade, his sisters, and the two strangers playing lawn-tennis. None of them noticed us that time; but, as we were returning, I observed that Mr. Reade jumped up from the grass where he was lounging in the midst of the adoring girls, as I thought contemptuously, and shook out of his hat the leaves and grasses with which his companions had filled it; as for them, they were too much occupied with him to see anything outside the park.
Haidee and I had to go to the village shop with a list of articles which I felt sure we should not get there. But it was one of Mr. Rayner’s principles to encourage local trade, so we had to go once a week and tease the crusty and ungrateful old man who was the sole representative of it by demands for such outlandish things as wax-candles, bloater-paste, and filoselle. I had been tapping vainly for some minutes on the little counter, on which lay four tallow “dips,” a box of rusty crochet-hooks, and a most uninviting piece of bacon, when Mr. Reade dashed into the shop and greeted me with much surprise. When he had asked after Mr. and Mrs. Rayner, and heard that they were quite well, there was a pause, and he seemed to look to me to continue the conversation; but I could think of nothing to say. So he roamed about, digging his cane into the cheese and knocking down a jar of snuff, which he carefully scraped together with his foot and shovelled back, dust and all, into the jar, while I still tapped and still nobody came.
“He must be at dinner,” said I resignedly. “In that case we shall have to wait.”
For I knew Mr. Bowles. So Mr. Reade seated himself on the counter and harpooned the bacon with one of the rusty crochet-hooks.
“Convenient place these village-shops are,” said he, not thinking of what he was saying, I was sure.
“Yes, if you don’t care what you get, nor how stale it is,” said I, sharply.
He laughed; but I did not intend to be funny at all.
“I came in only for some”—here he looked round the shop, and his eyes rested on a pile of dusty toys—“for some marbles. I thought they would do for the school-treat, you know.”