The bishop laid his hand on Henry's shoulder, and they walked in together, all three, his daughter on his other side. Many a surprised eye-glass was lifted; many an indignant eye regarded them.
Never yet had a college boy—St. John always excepted—ventured within the pale of that guarded place. And if the bishop and his daughter had appeared accompanied by a fiery serpent, it could not have caused more inward commotion. But nobody dared betray it: the bishop was the bishop, and not to be interfered with.
"There's Miss Beauclerc, my lad."
And in a few minutes—Henry could not tell how, in his mind's tumultuous confusion—Georgina Beauclerc had turned into a side walk with him, and they were alone. Georgina was the same Georgina as ever—impulsive, wilful, and daringly independent. Everybody paid court to the dean's daughter.
"Did you drop this in coming in, Miss Beauclerc?"
"My locket! Of course I must have dropped it. Harry, I would not have lost it for the world."
His sensitive cheek wore a crimson flush at the words. He had given it to her on her last birthday, when she was eighteen. As she took it from him, their fingers touched. That touch thrilled through his veins, while hers were unconscious, or at best heedless of the contact.
It was the not uncommon tale; the tale that has been enacted many times in life, and which Lord Byron has made familiar to us as being his own heart's history—
"The maid was on the eve of womanhood:
The boy had fewer summers; but his heart had far outgrown his years:
And to his sight there was but one fair face on earth,
And that was shining on him."
It has been intimated that Georgina Beauclerc had inherited the dean's innate taste for what is called beauty, both human and statuesque. In the dean it was very marked. This, it may have been, that first drew forth her regard for Henry Arkell. Certain it was, she saw him frequently, and took no pains to disguise her admiration. He was a great favourite of the dean's—was often invited to the deanery. That he was no common boy, in nature, mind, or form, was apparent to the dean, as it was to many others, and Dr. Beauclerc evinced his regard openly. Georgina did the same. At first she had merely liked to patronize the young college boy; rather to domineer over him, looking upon him as a child in comparison with herself. But as they grew older, the difference in their years became less marked, and now they appeared nearly of the same age, for he looked older than he was, and Georgina younger. She was very pretty, with her large, rich blue eyes, and her small, fair features.