It was a great pleasure to be alone with Kate in the open air, walking by her side, escorting her, and telling her as they walked all he knew about Blackpool: that it bore the same relation to the other towns of Lancashire as the seventh day does to the other six of the week; that it was the huge Lancashire Sunday, where the working classes of Accrington, Blackburn, Preston, and Burnley, during a week or a fortnight of the year, go to recreate themselves.
'The streets are built with large pavements,' he told her, 'so that jostling may be avoided, and there are many open spaces where people may loiter and congregate; the bonnets exhibited in the plate-glass windows, you can see, are obviously intended for holiday wear.' She stopped to look at these. 'Not one,' he said, 'is as pretty as the one you're wearing.'
'It's a pretty little hat,' she answered, and he pointed to the spider-legged piers and to a high headland, a sort of green cap over the ocean.
'Do you know that the fellow who owns that building has made a fortune?' said Montgomery, pointing to the roofs which began to appear above the edge of the common.
'Did he really?' replied Kate, trying to appear interested.
'Yes; he began with a sort of shanty where he sold ginger-beer and lemonade. It became the fashion to go out there, and now he's got dining-rooms and a spirit licence. We went up there last week, a lot of us, and we had such fun; we went donkey-riding, and Leslie had a fall. Did she tell you of it?'
'No; I've scarcely spoken to her for the last few days.'
'How's that? I thought you were such friends.'
'I like her very much; but she's always on the stage at night, and I don't like—I mean I should like—but I don't know that she would like me to go and see her.'
'And why not, pray?'