She was sauntering along a grassy road which, though within their own park, belonged to the public, when she almost ran against a man similarly occupied with herself, for he also was absorbed in the book he carried. I should like to know what two books brought them thus together! Each started back with an apology, then both burst into a modest laugh, which renewed itself with merrier ring, when the first and then the second attempt to pass, with all space for elbow-room, failed, and they stood opposite each other in a hopeless mental paralysis.
“Fate is opposed to our unneighbourliness!” said Mr. Wingfold. “She will not allow us to pass, and depart in peace! What do you say, Miss Wylder?—shall we yield or shall we resist?” As he spoke, he held out his hand.
Now Barbara was the last person in the world to refuse, without a painfully good reason, any offered hand. She had never seen cause to desire the acquaintance of a man because he was a clergyman; but neither had she any unwillingness, because he was a clergyman, to make his acquaintance; while to Thomas Wingfold she already felt some attraction: the strong little hand was in his immediately, and felt comfortable in the great honest clasp, which it returned heartily.
“I never saw you on your own feet before, Miss Wylder!” said the clergyman.
“Nor on anybody else's, I hope!” she returned.
“Oh, yes, indeed!—on Miss Brown's many a time!”
“You know Miss Brown then? She is my most intimate friend!”
“I am well aware of that! Everything worth knowing in the parish, and a good deal that is not, comes to my ears.”
“May I hope you count Miss Brown's affairs worth hearing about, then?”
“Of course I do! Does not a lady call her friend, whose acquaintance I have long wished to make! and do I not know that Miss Brown loves her in return! I cannot help sometimes regretting for a moment that four-footed friends in general are so short-lived.”