Presently the basket was filled.
"There, that's done, and I am tired," quoth the damsel; "and I shall leave the others till to-morrow. I am going to rest myself in the summer-house," she added.
"May I go there too?" John—stupid John—asked.
"Of course he might. Wasn't he always at home at High Beech?" the young lady wished to know. "Only I shall be busy when I am there. I brought my work out with me, and I must do it," she added.
John might have thought, though he did not say, that whatever Miss Wilson chose to do at any particular time, was the most becoming and bewitching thing she could be doing at that particular time. That is to say, he might have thought this had he been her lover; but as he was not, or was, "without intending it," as the case might be, he only followed her into the holly arbour, and seated himself at a respectful distance.
"So you are really going to run away from us, Mr. Tincroft?"
He really was; and he again said so.
"And I have to thank you, Miss Wilson," stammered out John, "for the pleasant walks I have enjoyed."
Miss Wilson was glad he had enjoyed pleasant walks; but she was not aware that she was the cause of them. This, but in other words, perhaps.
"It was not very wise of me, I daresay," continued the awkward booby, getting deeper into the mire; "because you see, Miss Wilson—I am—I am soon going to leave England for ever, most likely; and you—I am sure I wish you every happiness in the life on which you will shortly enter, I hope. Will you be good enough to repeat this to your cousin Walter? And if you could just hint to your father, Miss Wilson—that, that it is not wise or kind of him to go about saying what he is saying—"