She leaped out, almost before the pony had stopped, and ran to the pathway with outstretched hands.
“How pleasant that we should meet you, Jane! Papa has been taking me for a drive this afternoon.”
Oliver stood apart, behind his sister, looking and listening. The speaker was one of the prettiest girls he had ever seen, with a blushing, dimpled face, a smiling mouth displaying small white teeth, shy blue eyes, and bright hair. Her straw hat had blue ribbons and her dress was one of light silk. Never in his life, thought Oliver, had he seen so sweet a face or heard so sweet a voice.
“Have you been for a walk?” she asked of Jane.
“No,” answered Jane. “We have been down the Inlet, and sitting to watch the sun set. This is my brother, Emma, of whom you have heard. He arrived this afternoon, and has left Tours. Will you allow me to introduce him to you? Oliver, this is Miss Paul.”
Mr. Oliver Preen was about to execute a deep bow at a respectful distance, after the manner of the fashionable blades of Tours, and swung off his hat to begin with; but Emma Paul, who was not fashionable at all, but sociable, inexperienced and unpretending, held out her hand. She liked his looks; a slender young fellow, in deep mourning, with a fair, mild, pleasing face.
“Papa,” she said, turning to the gig, which had drawn up close to the foot-path, “this is Mr. Oliver Preen, from France. He has come home, Jane says.”
John Paul, a portly, elderly gentleman, with iron-grey hair and a face that looked stern to those who did not know him, bent forward and shook hands with the stranger.
Emma began plunging into all sorts of gossip, for she liked nothing better than to talk. Jane liked it too.
“I have been telling Oliver we call Duck Brook the fag end of the world, and that it was you who first said it,” cried Jane.