‘This is startling,’ Heathcote said; ‘I did not know my reputation had travelled before me; it is a pity it is not something better worth remembering. But what do you know about goals, Miss Mountford, if I may make so bold?’
‘Rose,’ said that little person, who was wreathed in smiles; ‘that is Miss Mountford opposite. I am only the youngest. Oh, I heard from Charley Ashley all about it. We know about goals perfectly well, for we used to play ourselves long ago in the holidays with Charley and Willie—till mamma put a stop to it,’ Rose added, with a sigh.
‘I should think I put a stop to it! You played once, I believe,’ said Mrs. Mountford, with a slight frown, feeling that this was a quite unnecessary confidence.
‘Oh, much oftener; don’t you recollect, Anne, you played football too, and you were capital, the boys said?’
Now Anne was, in fact, much troubled by this revelation. She, in her present superlative condition, walking about in a halo of higher things, to be presented to a stranger who was not a stranger, and, no doubt, would soon hear all about her, as a football player, a girl who was athletic, a tom-boy, neither less nor more! She was about to reply with annoyance, when the ludicrous aspect of it suddenly struck her, and she burst into a laugh in spite of herself. ‘There is such a thing as an inconvenient memory,’ she said. ‘I am not proud of playing football now.’
‘I am not at all ashamed of it,’ said Rose. ‘I never should have known what a goal was if I hadn’t played. Do you play tennis, too, Mr. Heathcote? It is not too cold if you are fond of it. Charley said you were good at anything—good all round, he said.’
‘That is a very flattering reputation, and you must let me thank Mr. Charley, whoever he is, for sounding my trumpet. But all that was a hundred years ago,’ Heathcote said; and this made up a little lost ground for him with Anne, for she thought she heard something like a sigh.
‘You will like to try the covers,’ said Mr. Mountford. ‘I go out very little myself now-a-days, and I daresay you begin to feel the damp, too. I don’t preserve so much as I should like to do; these girls are always interfering with their false notions; but, all the same, I can promise you a few days’ sport.’
‘Is it the partridges or the poachers that the young ladies patronise?’ Heathcote said.
‘My dear,’ said Mrs. Mountford, ‘what is the use of calling attention to Anne’s crotchets? She has her own way of thinking, Mr. Heathcote. I tell her she must never marry a sportsman. But, indeed, she has a great deal to say for herself. It does not seem half so silly when you hear what she has got to say.’