“That a fact!” he cried, with a fervour that gave him away.
I regret to say that I laughed to myself in a cynical manner.
“Grace, this is Mr. Dimsdale, whom you saw batting just now,” said the Optimist, as we halted under the drag. “Dimsdale, Miss Trentham, whose brother got you leg before.”
“Awful fluke it was, too,” said the coach’s fair occupant frankly, in the act of bowing; and then added, “How do you? Won’t you come up? Heaps of room, and you’ll see ever so much better.”
As she looked down at us, and we looked up at her, I discovered with alarming suddenness that Miss Grace Trentham had a pair of eyes of remarkable beauty, large and clear, and very blue, indeed, with long dark lashes drooping on her cheeks. She had also the colouring that one only sees in the English girl grown in the open air. In itself it was a pastoral, as sweet as a mown hayfield in a sunny June. It was of the purest light brown, not quite dark enough for chestnut, but, as I happen to be a promising batsman, and not a budding novelist, I am utterly at a loss to describe exactly the kind of tint I mean. Therefore, you must excuse my limitations, particularly as you may find me playing for the County one day, if I confess that the utmost my literary art can do for Miss Grace Trentham’s skin is to say that it most resembled in the richness of its hue a cup of strong tea with plenty of thick cream in it. She had heavy coils of hair of a similar baffling shade, and a mischievous curl or two that made her eyebrows laugh. She was an early-morning girl, English to the bone, and clean and limber as a thorough-bred. I should not have suspected her of afterthoughts, and do not doubt that had I asked her what her opinion was of “Treasure Island,” she would have said without the slightest hesitation, “Oh, isn’t it just ripping!”
When on her invitation we climbed to the seats beside her, we found that she was scoring with a diligence as wonderful as it was artistic. She had two fountain pens—one of black ink, to put down the runs; the other of red, to take the bowling analysis.
“Awfully jolly pleased, Mr. Dimsdale, to see you out so soon,” she said.
“Oh!” said I; my jaw fell.
“You were shaping a great deal too well, you know,” she added.
My jaw resumed its normal position.