"Yes, they are very nice views," said Ethel, blushing again. She was walking arm in arm with the governess, and Mr. North strolled along at Ethel's elbow.
"How very well you speak French!" he exclaimed. "Almost as well as we French people ourselves. There's but a slight accent."
A deeper and quite unnecessary blush at this. "But I thought you were English, monsieur."
"Well, so I am, mademoiselle. But when you come to sojourn a long while in a country, you get to identify yourself with its inhabitants,--that is to say, with their nationality."
"And you have been for a long time in France?"
"Yes."
They had come to the stile now. Mr. North got over it and assisted Madame Guise. Ethel mounted instantly, and was jumping down alone: but he turned and caught her. In the hurry she tripped, and somewhat crushed her hat against his shoulder. He made fifty thousand apologies, just as though it had been his fault; and there was much laughing. Mr. North quite forgot to release her hand until they had gone on some paces; and Ethel's blush at this was as hot as the summer's night.
At the entrance gate, where he had taken leave of Madame Guise in the morning, he took leave of them now; shaking the hand of Madame and asking whether he might be permitted to shake Ethel's, as it was the mode in England. The blushes were worst of all then: and Ethel's private conviction was that the whole world had never contained so attractive an individual as Mr. George North.
Mr. George North had all but regained the door of the Dolphin Inn, where he had dined and would lodge for the night, when a carriage and pair, with its bright lamps lighted, came spanking round the corner at a quick pace, the groom driving. George North, drawing aside as it passed him, recognized the handsome phaeton he had seen in the morning at the Turk's Head. The Master of Greylands was returning from Stilborough.