“But a youth like you would be easily deceived.”
“Oh no!” I cried; “don’t think that, Miss Carr. I would not give up Mr Hallett for anything. You don’t know him,” I said almost indignantly. “Why, when his father died, he, poor fellow, had to leave college, and give up all his prospects to gain a living anyhow, to keep his poor sick mother and his sister.”
“He has a sister?”
“Yes: so very pretty: Linny Hallett. I go there, and read Latin and German with Mr Hallett, while he works at his—his great invention. Oh, Miss Carr, if you could see him, so good and tender to his invalid complaining mother, you would say I ought to be only too proud of my friend!”
She was pressing my hand as she hastened her steps up and down the room. Then, loosing my hand suddenly, she walked quickly to the window, and threw it open, to stand there for a few minutes gazing out.
“The room was too warm, Antony,” she said in a quiet, composed way; and her pleasant smile was back upon her face as she returned to me. “Why, we were quite racing up and down the room. So you read German, do you? Come, you shall read a bit of Goethe to me.”
“I’m afraid—”
“That you are not perfect, Antony?” she said, laughing in a bright, eager way. “Neither am I. We will both try and improve ourselves. Have you well mastered the old, crabby characters?”
“Oh yes,” I said, laughing. “My mother taught me them when I was very young.”
“Why, Antony,” she cried, snatching the book from my hands at the end of half an hour; “you ought to be my master. But come, it is nearly dinner-time, and we must dress.”