Captain Beverley looked at her and at Alexa with good-humoured curiosity. Alexa looked pretty and frightened, but Josey, her long thin legs emerging from a shabby waterproof, her “touzled” fair hair tumbling out from under a still shabbier hat, was rather a remarkable object.
“These are your younger sisters, I suppose?” he said, turning to Lilias.
“Yes,” she answered, rather shortly; “we all came out for a ramble as soon as the rain cleared off. It is so miserable to be shut up in the house all day.”
“Just what I have been feeling,” he replied. “Not that I mind the rain, but still one can’t exactly set off for a walk in it unless one has something to do or somewhere to go. It is very lucky for me that I met you; I was just making up my mind to losing my way.”
“I dare say we can direct you,” said Lilias, “but we are not going your way. We are going home; it must be about half-past three now, and we have been out ever since dinner-time. Mary, don’t you think we should be going home?—it is a good walk from here, you know. You can direct Captain Beverley to Hathercourt Edge better than I, I think.”
“But I don’t want to be directed to Hathercourt Edge,” said Captain Beverley, with a very slight touch of annoyance in his tone. “I have just come from there. Of course, if you won’t let me walk with you, I must submit; but I was bound for Hathercourt Rectory. I am very anxious to see Mr Western, and thought I might again take my chance of finding him at home. That is to say, if he will not think me very troublesome.”
“Of course he will not,” answered Mary, heartily; “he was very sorry to have missed you yesterday, and I know he will be at home all this afternoon. Which way shall we go back, Lilias—by the Southmore road, or all the way through the wood?”
“By the wood decidedly, I should say,” answered Captain Beverley. “Miss Western,” he went on, quickly, “you have got such a bramble on your skirt—there, now, I have got him—step forward, please—yes, that’s it.”
By this manoeuvre he had managed to get Lilias and himself a little in front of the others, and he maintained his ground by walking on beside her. Francie was at her other side, so the arrangement into threes seemed to come about quite naturally, Mary following with Alexa and Josephine. By degrees Lilias lost the slight constraint which her manner had shown at first, and became her usual happy, winning self. The sound of her voice, and now and then of her laugh, was enough to make Mary happy too, and well content to keep behind at a reasonable distance, so that Lilias should not be annoyed by the exhibition before a stranger of Alexa’s foolish shyness or Josey’s uncalled-for remarks.
The sun came out more brightly, and gleamed and quivered down the wood alleys before them. What did they talk of, those two, as they walked on quietly, little Francie beside them, trotting along, lost in her own pretty baby dreams of fairies and brownies and the like, with which her small head was filled, all unconscious of the old, old drama beginning once more to be re-enacted in the old, old way that is ever new? What did they talk of? Could they have told, or did it matter? All about everythings and nothings, no doubt, so called “small talk,” which yet seemed full of interest, nothing very wise or weighty—so much, at least, is certain—but certain too that the walk through the Balner woods that sweet November afternoon was neither wearisome nor long to Lilias Western and the new owner of the old Edge farm.