They walked on in silence for a little while after this, she looking straight before her into the cool grey evening, he stealing an occasional glance at her profile.
How pretty she was! The pearly complexion was so delicate, and yet so fresh and glowing in its youthful health. Hygeia herself might have had just such a complexion. The features, too, so neatly cut, the nose as clear in its chiselling as if it were pure Grecian, but with just that little tilt at the tip which gave piquancy to the face. The mouth was more thoughtful than he cared to see the lips of girlhood, for those pensive lines suggested domestic anxieties; but when she smiled or laughed the thoughtfulness vanished, lost in a radiant gaiety that shone like sunlight over all her countenance. He could not doubt that a happy disposition, a power of rising superior to small sordid cares, was a leading characteristic of her nature.
She had natural cheerfulness, the richest dowry a wife can bring to husband and home. Presently, as he swung his stick against the light tracery of hawthorn and blackberry, a happy thought occurred to him. His sister had pledged herself to be kind to these motherless girls. Her kindness could not begin too soon.
“You are to bring your sisters to the ice to-morrow morning, Miss Marchant,” he said presently. “What do you call morning?”
“I hope we shall be there before eleven. The mornings are so lovely in this frosty weather.”
“The mornings are delicious. Come as early as you possibly can. After two hours’ skating you will be tolerably tired, I should think—though you walk with the air of a person who does not know what it is to be tired—so you must all come to lunch with my sister.”
“You are very kind,” said Eve, blushing, and suddenly radiant with her happiest smile, “but we could not think of such a thing.”
“I understand. You would not come at my invitation. You think I have no rights in the case. Yet it would be hard if a brother couldn’t ask his friends to his sister’s house.”
“Friends, perhaps, yes; but we are mere acquaintance.”
“Please don’t say anything so unkind. I felt that we were friends from the first, you and your sisters and I, from the hour we found you on the top of the hill, when I mistook you for fairies. However, all the exigencies of the situation shall be complied with. My sister shall write to you this evening.”