“Hallo, Bob, are you going anywhere in particular?” was Godfrey’s salutation to Robert Macpherson, when the next afternoon he met him at a point in the grounds where two paths diverged.
“Just to town for a walk. Are you going anywhere in particular?” was the reply, to which Godfrey responded:
“Just away from town for a walk.”
And so the two took different roads and sauntered on until, curiously enough, they met again at the gate of Mrs. Rogers’s cottage, where Gertie sat alone upon the porch.
“Did you start to come here?” Robert asked, coloring a little, and Godfrey replied:
“Yes; did you?” while his face wore a look of annoyance, which was in no wise lessened when ten minutes later Tom Barton also appeared, and seemed to think it a good joke that they had all met there together and so found each other out.
“I don’t know what there is to find out,” Godfrey said doggedly, adding, as he rose to his feet with an impatient shake of his pants: “This is most too much of a good thing, and I think I’ll go.”
“Please, Mr. Godfrey, don’t,” Gertie said beseechingly, feeling intuitively that hers was rather a novel position, alone with three young men, and that Godfrey was in some way a protection.
He came to see her of course, but she was too much a child to think for a moment that the remembrance of her blue eyes and wavy hair had brought the others there. They came, no doubt, to get some sewing done, and she was sorry her auntie was gone, and very glad when at last she saw her coming round the turn in the road, for now they could give their orders and go away.
For an instant Mary Rogers stopped short at sight of three town-bred, fashionable young men, with perfumed locks, and fancy canes, and short coats, and soft hats, sitting before her door, with Gertie in their midst, looking so beautiful and pure and innocent, and so unconscious withal of the admiration she was exciting. Then, the good honest-minded woman’s resolution was taken, and she went swiftly up the walk and courtesying to her visitors asked what she could do for them.