"Tears?" said I, not knowing very well what to say; for "people often do say very little, when they mean a great deal."
"My old favourite will know the black ladders of Carneydd Llewellyn no more," said she, stooping over the goat caressingly to hide her confusion.
"But, Winifred--Miss Lloyd--why tears?"
"Can you ask me?" said she, her eyes flashing through them.
"Why, what a fuss you make! I have often done so--when a boy!"
"But you are no longer a boy; nor am I a girl, Mr. Hardinge."
"Do please call me Harry, like Sir Madoc," I entreated. "Not now--after this; and here comes Lady Estelle."
"Estelle!"
At that moment, not far from us, we saw Lady Naseby, driven in a pony-phaeton by Caradoc, and Lady Estelle with Guilfoyle a little way behind them, on horseback, and unaccompanied by any groom, coming sweeping at a trot down the wooded glen.
Such is the amusing inconsistency of the human heart--the male human heart, perhaps my lady readers will say--that though I had been more than flirting with Winifred Lloyd--on the eve of becoming too tender, perhaps--I felt a pang of jealousy on seeing that Guilfoyle was Lady Estelle's sole companion, for Dora was doubtless immersed in the details of her forthcoming fête.