So Miss Herbert, this little great lady, unbent and allowed “Jerry” to lead her round the old-fashioned garden, to the out-houses and pigsties, where the obese pigs lay oblivious of what fate had in store for them; to the stables; to the dairy, where she condescended to drink a glass of new milk, and by the time they had returned to the garden the two were as good friends as their different stations in life would permit. Young Leigh, who saw in this dainty little maid the incarnation of fairies, nymphs, goddesses, and other ideals which, in a dim way, were forming themselves in his brain, endeavored, after his first shyness had passed away, to show her what beautiful shapes and forms could be found in flower, leaf, and tree, and other things in nature. His talk, indeed, soared far above her pretty little head, and when they returned to the garden he was trying to make her see that those masses of white clouds low down in the distance were two bodies of warriors just about to meet in deadly fray.
“You are a very, very funny boy,” said Miss Herbert, with such an air of conviction that he was startled into silence.
“Your name is Jerry, isn’t it?” she continued. “Jerry’s an ugly name.”
“My name is Gerald—Gerald Leigh.”
“Oh; Gerald!” Even this child could see the impropriety of a tenant farmer having a son named Gerald. No wonder Abraham Leigh addressed his boy as Jerry!
“Do you like being a farmer?” she asked.
“I am not going to be a farmer; I don’t like it.”
“What a pity! Farmers are such a worthy, respectable class of men,” said the girl, using a stock phrase she had caught up somewhere.
The boy laughed merrily. Mr. Herbert’s approbation sat newly upon him, and he was only talking to a child; so he said:
“I hope to be worthy and respectable, but a much greater man than a farmer.”