“That’s just your deception,” said Joan, “that’s trying to get at my weak side. When they get a laugh out of me, they think no more about it; and it’s far too easy,” Joan added, shaking her head with comical distress, “to get a laugh out of me, far too easy; but don’t you think it’s fun, for I am as serious as I can be,” she cried, turning round upon the culprit, who flew to her work with an alacrity which showed Joan’s admonition to be not without effect, though she was cramming her apron into her mouth all the time, that she might not laugh. Joan took Selby all over the dairy, and showed him everything. She was an enthusiast in all that concerned this portion of rural work. She took him out to the fields behind the house afterwards to see her pet cows. It was a breezy spring day, the sun shining, but the wind blowing, and cold though sunny. Joan went out with the light shining in her trim and smooth brown hair, and without a thought even of a shawl. “Cold? oh no, I’m not cold,” she said, “I don’t trouble hats much, if it is not in the height of summer, when you can really say there’s something like a sun. This doesn’t count; there is no headache in it,” said Joan, looking affectionately at the temperate ruler of the day, who makes no unnecessary show in the North. “But you might catch cold,” suggested the middle-aged lover. “Bless us,” said Joan, “me catch cold! why, such a thing was never thought of; I’ve seen a fuss made about Harry for taking cold; but never me. The air on the Fells never gives cold. It is your fat damp air in the level, it’s not our hill air that ever does any harm.”
“I am trying to think that, too. I am tired wandering about the world with a regiment of navvies,” said Selby; “I’m thinking of settling down.”
“That’s not a bad thing to do; but you must have led a cheery life roaming about the world as you say. I don’t know that I would like it myself; but change is lightsome. You must have seen a deal in your day,” said Joan, looking at her companion. And as she did so she could not but allow that he was a very “wise-like man.” It would be difficult to give in other words the full force of this phrase. It does not mean good-looking, or respectable, or tall, or wealthy, or well-dressed, or well-mannered, but it means all of these together. And Philip Selby was a little more—he was really handsome, though he was no longer young.
“I have seen a great deal in my day,” he said, “and my day has been a good long one, for I’ve been afloat upon the world for more than twenty years; but I don’t know that I ever saw anything so much to my mind as I see to-day—a fine, breezy hillside, and fine cattle, and a thriving country, not to say somebody by my side that——”
“Oh, you need not reckon me,” said Joan; “there’s women in all countries. It’s a great pity there’s so many of us; we would be a great deal more thought of if there were but a few.”
“Perhaps you would be angry,” said Selby, “if I said there were not many like Miss Joan Joscelyn, wherever a man may go.”
“Oh, no, far from angry,” said Joan, with a laugh. “I should think it was a very nice compliment; compliments are not common things in our parts. You that have been about the world you know how to flatter country folk—but among the Fells they’re but little known. Look at that beast now,” she said, stroking tenderly the face of a great, soft-eyed cow, “did you ever see a bonnier creature? There’s not a lady in all England has such a balmy breath. And she’s better than she’s bonnie. She’s a small fortune to us. And that little thing, that’s one from France, of the Brittany kind, small feeders and good milkers; that belongs to our little Liddy. You have never seen Liddy, Mr. Selby? She’s the pet of the family; and when she’s not here we make a pet of her little cow. Some are fond of Alderneys, some like this French breed. Which do you like best?”
“I have no opinion. I am no judge. I know a horse when I see one, but not a cow. I like the kind, Miss Joan, that you like best.”
“Well,” said Joan, laughing, “our tastes agree in some things. You remember that brown colt? The last time I saw him he was just what I expected—turning out a fine beast, far better than that Sister to Scythian that father set such store upon. I think you and me were right there.”
“I am sure we were right,” said Selby; “two heads are better than one. Do you know, Miss Joan, I think our tastes are very likely to agree. I have been to see Heatonshaw—which was the place you said you would dearly like yourself.”