'You talked to me so kindly like,' she said, 'and hardly anybody does that, and—and that was it. Don't talk to me kindly again, sir, ever, ever, ever!'
He patted her hand.
'That's worse,' said Lotty, feeling she wanted to cry again, and she drew the hand away. 'You'll have me crying again. Speak gruff to me, as others do, and call me "Lot!"'
But at that moment Antony had a happy inspiration. He remembered that in his big coat-pocket he had a large box of assorted chocolates, and here close by on a bare part of the moor was a big white stone.
'Come,' he cried, 'there is no great hurry, and I'm going to have some chocolates. Won't you, Lot?'
Down he sat on the big white stone, and Lotty stood timidly in front of him. But Antony would not have this arrangement, so he lifted her bodily up—'how strong he is!' she thought—and seated her beside him, then threw a big handful of the delicious sweets into her lap.
She was smiling now. She was happy again. It was not the chocolates that worked the change; but the chance companionship of this youth of gentle blood, so high above her, seemed to have wakened a chord long, long untouched in that little harp of a heart of hers.
Was it but a dream, or had there been once a time, long—ever so long—ago, when voices quite as pleasant and musical and refined as Antony's were not strange to her? And had she not, when young—she was twelve now, and that is so old—lived in a real house, with bright cushions on real sofas, and lamps and mirrors and flowers everywhere? No, that must have been a dream; but it was one she often dreamt while she swung by night in her cot, as the winds rocked the caravan and lulled her to sleep.
The autumn evening was very beautiful now; bright stars were shining so closely overhead that it seemed as if one could almost touch them with a fishing-rod. Besides, a big, nearly round moon had managed to scramble up behind the bank of blue clouds in the east—a big, fat face of a moon that appeared to be bursting with half-concealed merriment as it blinked across the moor.
It wasn't the lollies that had enabled Lotty to regain her good spirits; but she felt quietly happy sitting here on the stone beside this newly found friend. Oh yes, he was going to be a friend; she felt certain of that already. Young though Lottie was, she had a woman's instinct. Perhaps she possessed a woman's pride as well, though only in embryo; for she felt half-ashamed of her awkward, bare brown legs that ended not in shoes but rough sandals, and of the pretty necklace of crimson hips and haws that she had strung for herself only yesterday.