“And so I do. There are worse men in the world than George Shenstone—possibly few better. And many a good woman would, and might, be glad to become his wife. For all, I know one of a very indifferent sort who wouldn’t—that’s Gwen Wynn.”
“But he’s very good-looking?” Ellen urges; “the handsomest gentleman in the neighbourhood. Everybody says so.”
“There your everybody would be wrong again—if they thought as they say. But they don’t. I know one who thinks somebody else much handsomer than he.”
“Who?” asks Miss Lees, looking puzzled. For she has never heard of Gwendoline having a preference, save that spoken of.
“The Reverend William Musgrave,” replies Gwen, in turn bending inquisitive eyes on her companion, to whose cheeks the answer has brought a flush of colour, with a spasm of pain at the heart. Is it possible her rich relative—the heiress of Llangorren Court—can have set her eyes upon the poor curate of Llangorren Church, where her own thoughts have been secretly straying? With an effort to conceal them now, as the pain caused her, she rejoins interrogatively, but in faltering tone—
“You think Mr Musgrave handsomer than Mr Shenstone?”
“Indeed I don’t. Who says I do?”
“Oh—I thought,” stammers out the other, relieved—too pleased just then to stand up for the superiority of the curate’s personal appearance—“I thought you meant it that way.”
“But I didn’t. All I said was, that somebody thinks so; and that isn’t I. Shall I tell you who it is?”
Ellen’s heart is again quiet; she does not need to be told, already divining who it is—herself.