Then a smile, indulgent, amused, appeared on her face.
“Well, it’s the first time I’ve ever heard him called so nice-looking,” she said. “He’s very well, of course, and he’s got a good face, and a nice face, but I’ve never heard tell he was considered handsome.”
The girl looked up again, the most innocent surprise in every feature.
“Not handsome!” she said under her breath. “Why, it seems to me I never saw any face so—so beautiful! He’s like a picture, not like any man I ever saw before. To look at him makes me feel humiliated at the thought that I should have been the means of causing him to hurt himself, and yet it makes me proud too to think that he should have done what he did for me!”
Beginning timidly, the girl grew more and more enthusiastic as she went on, till she ended with fire in her blue eyes, and sat with her lips parted in a sort of ecstasy, gazing out of the window at the figure of the wholly unconscious gentleman who was now sauntering back towards the house.
Sir Robert, who had hurt his arm in his efforts to stop the runaway bicycle, carried it in a sling, and Rhoda’s eyes softened and filled with tears as she noted the fact.
The old nurse’s face began to grow prim.
“You mustn’t let Lady Sarah hear you speaking so admiring of her intended, or she’ll be jealous,” said she.
A sudden shadow passed over the girl’s face.
“Lady Sarah! Who is she?” she asked quickly, in a stifled voice.