By this time I had been able to look at the girl. She was a year or two older than myself, I thought, and the loveliest creature I had ever seen. She had large blue eyes of the rare shade called violet, a little round perhaps, but the long lashes did something to rectify that fault; and a delicate nose—turned up a little of course, else at her age she could not have been so pretty. Her mouth was well curved, expressing a full share of Paley’s happiness; her chin was something large and projecting, but the lines were fine. Her hair was a light brown, but dark for her eyes, and her complexion would have been enchanting to any one fond of the ‘sweet mixture, red and white.’ Her figure was that of a girl of thirteen, undetermined—but therein I was not critical. ‘An exceeding fair forehead,’ to quote Sir Philip Sidney, and plump, white, dimple-knuckled hands complete the picture sufficiently for the present. Indeed it would have been better to say only that I was taken with her, and then the reader might fancy her such as he would have been taken with himself. But I was not fascinated. It was only that I was a boy and she was a girl, and there being no element of decided repulsion, I felt kindly disposed towards her.
Mrs Wilson turned to me.
‘Well, Master Cumbermede, you see I am able to give you more than I promised.’
‘Yes,’ I returned; ‘you promised to show me the old house—’
‘And here,’ she interposed, ‘I show you a young lady as well.’
‘Yes, thank you,’ I said simply. But I had a feeling that Mrs Wilson was not absolutely well-pleased.
I was rather shy of Miss Clara—not that I was afraid of her, but that I did not exactly know what was expected of me, and Mrs Wilson gave us no further introduction to each other. I was not so shy, however, as not to wish Mrs Wilson would leave us together, for then, I thought, we should get on well enough; but such was not her intent. Desirous of being agreeable, however—as far as I knew how, and remembering that Mrs Wilson had given me the choice before, I said to her—
‘Mightn’t we go and look at the deer, Mrs Wilson?’
‘You had better not,’ she answered. ‘They are rather ill-tempered just now. They might run at you. I heard them fighting last night, and knocking their horns together dreadfully.’
‘Then we’d better not,’ said Clara. ‘They frightened me very much yesterday.’