“Uncertain as the weather!” thought he, as he smiled and kissed his hand, approaching, “a lowering evening yesterday, and now so sunny a morning.”
“How do you do, Miss Violet? you said you wanted a water-lily, so I found two in my morning’s ramble, and here they are.”
“How beautiful. Thank you very much. Where did you find them?” said Vi, quite glowing.
“In the Miller’s Tarn,” he answered. “I’m so glad you like them.”
“Quite beautiful! The Miller’s Tarn?”
She remembered that she had mentioned it yesterday as a likely place, but it was two miles away; four miles there and back, for a flower. It deserved her thanks, and she did thank him; and reminded him in tone and look of that little Vi of other years, very pleasantly yet somehow sadly.
“I mean to return to Cambridge to-morrow,” said William, a little regretfully; he had glanced round at the familiar scene; “and I am sorry to leave so soon.”
“And must you go?” asked Violet.
“Not quite must, but I think I ought. If I had brought with me some papers I have been transcribing for Doctor Sprague, I might have stayed a little longer, but they are locked up, and he wants the copy on Tuesday, and so I can’t help it.”
“It was hardly worth while coming. Poor grannie will miss you very much.”