“Are you doing something?”
“Oh well, but you are not a lady.”
“No, heaven be praised.”
“Thank you.”
He stopped rowing, drew the oars out of the water, looked her into the face and asked:
“What do you mean by that?—No, don’t be angry with me; I will tell you something, I am a queer sort of person. You cannot understand it. You think because I wear good clothes, I must be a fine man. My father was a fine man; I have been told that he knew no end of things, and I daresay he did, since he was a district-judge. I know nothing because mother and I were all to each other, and I did not care to learn the things they teach in the schools, and don’t care about them now either. Oh, you ought to have seen my mother; she was such a tiny wee lady. When I was no older than thirteen I could carry her down into the garden. She was so light; in recent years I would often carry her on my arm through the whole garden and park. I can still see her in her black gowns with the many wide laces....”
He seized the oars and rowed violently. The councilor became a little uneasy, when the water reached so high at the stern, and suggested, that they had better see about getting home again; so back they went.
“Tell me,” said the girl, when the violence of his rowing had decreased a little. “Do you often go to town?”
“I have never been there.”
“Never been there? And you only live twelve miles away?”