Phil did not care to discuss the matter with his unreasonable cousin, who rattled on until the carriage stopped at Mrs. Ferguson’s door. Glad of the chance to escape from Anna’s tirade, Phil said he would walk home, and so the carriage drove on, leaving him standing by the gate with his grandmother, who said:
“Such a tongue as Anny’s got!—hung in the middle, I do believe. She must git it from the Rices, for the Fergusons ain’t an atom backbity. Of course Rennet ain’t exactly what I thought Margaret’s girl would be, but—then—everything is strange and new to her. She’s all Hetherton, and the very image of the old lady, Fred’s mother. But you and I’ll stand by her Phil. Poor little lonesome critter! how I pity her, alone in that great house, with her father dead in the grave-yard, and her mother dead over the seas!”
There were tears in grandma’s eyes, and Phil felt a lump in his own throat as he walked rapidly away, repeating her words to himself.
“Poor little girl! Alone in that great house, with her father dead in the grave-yard, and her mother dead over the sea.”
Phil was still a little sore and disappointed. He had made no impression upon Reinette, except it were one of disgust. And everything had turned out so differently from what he had hoped. Even Reinette was wholly different from his idea of her. The tall Amazon, with pink and white complexion and yellow hair, had proved to be a wee little creature, with dark eyes, and hair, and face, but still with something indescribably bewitching and graceful, in every turn of her head and motion of her body, while the clear, bell-like tones of her voice, with its pretty accent, rang continually in his ears, and he began to envy Mr. Beresford the pleasure of having her all to himself for an indefinite length of time.
What would she say to him? Would she talk like any girl, and ask him “who the Fergusons were,” and who “the long-legged spooney with the dirty face and hands and the grass stains on his pants?” Phil had reached home by this time, and had seen in the glass that his personal appearance was not as prepossessing as it might be.
“Upon my word,” he said, as he contemplated himself in the mirror, “I am a beauty. Look at that streak of dirt upon my forehead, and that spot on my nose, and that blood stain under my eye, and, to crown all, Beresford’s old hat. I look for all the world like a prizefighter, I who fancied there was something so distingue and high-toney about me that Reinette would see it at once, and she never even bowed to me, but said she felt like dying.”
Here the ludicrousness of the whole affair came over Phil so forcibly that he burst into a loud, merry laugh, which was like thunder on a sultry day. It cleared the atmosphere, and Phil was himself again, or would be after the long ride on horseback which he determined to take into the country.
Calling John the stable-boy he bade him saddle Pluto, his riding horse, and was soon galloping off at a furious rate, going eastward first until he came to a fork in the road, where he turned and rode in the direction of Hetherton Place. He had no intention of stopping there—no expectation of seeing Reinette, unless Providence should interfere. But Providence did not interfere, and he saw no sign of human life about the house.
The windows of Reinette’s chamber were open and in one of them sat Mrs. Speckle, the cat, evidently absorbed in something going on inside—the gambols of her three kittens, perhaps.