She explained so simply; the child understood. His eyes brightened.
“Oh, thank you, thank you!” he answered. “Why, it’s quite nice now, quite nice.”
“Well, you won’t forget another time,” said Robina. She had to go back to her own seat. She took care in doing so not to glance at Harriet.
At last school time was over, and the young people went into the gardens. Ralph now felt happy once more. His idea was that Harriet—dear, kind, fascinating Harriet, who had made him so intensely happy on the day when she had been his trial school-mother—would now take him all away by himself. She would sit somewhere under a tree, and get him to sit by her side, and tell him her plans. These plans must surely include a picnic tea and a visit to the gipsies. Ralph felt now that every desire in his life was centred round the gipsies.
“Come, Harriet,” he said, tugging at her sleeve, “come away, please.”
“What’s the matter?” asked Harriet.
“Why—we want to be all by our lones,” said Ralph. “We have such lots to talk about!”
Harriet looked down at him. She looked down at a little boy, with flushed cheeks and lovely eyes and a tremulous, rosy mouth, and a little face all full of love and soul and feeling. But it was not given to Harriet, even for a minute, to see this little boy as he really was. She only saw through him a pony—a flesh and blood pony, with its side-saddle; and she saw a girl with a perfectly-fitting habit who owned the pony, and this girl was herself.
“Well,” she said a little crossly, for she had a great deal to do that afternoon, and meant to have a right good time at a great picnic where all the girls were going, and where, of course, she would be, in honour of her triumph that morning, the principal personage. “Well,” she repeated, “what is it?”
“I have such a lot to say,” whispered Ralph.