“Allow me to help you up this steep rise. It was most inconsiderate of me to call you down, Miss Lovejoy.”
“Pray do not mention it, Mr. Lorraine. Gregory, how rude you are to give Mr. Lorraine all this trouble! But you never were famous for good manners.”
“If I meddle with them again,” thought Gregory, “may I be ‘adorned,’ as my father says! However, I must keep a sharp look-out. The girl is getting quite independent; and I,—oh, I am to be nobody! I’ll just go and see what Phyllis thinks of it.”
But Mabel, who had not forgiven him yet for his insolent remark about her cheeks, deprived him of even that comfort.
“Now Gregory dear, you have done nothing all day but wander about with cousin Phyllis. Just stay here for a couple of hours; if you can’t work yourself, your looking on will make the other people work. I am quite ashamed of my inattention to Mr. Lorraine all the afternoon. I am sure he must want a glass of ale, after all he has gone through. And while he takes it, I may be finding Charlie’s tackle for him. I know where it is, and you do not. And Charlie left it especially under my charge, you remember.”
“That is the first I have heard of it. However, if Lorraine wants beer, why so do I. Send Phyllis out with a jug for me.”
“Yes, to be sure, dear. To be sure. How delighted she will be to come!”
“As delighted as you are to go,” he replied; but she was already out of hearing; and all he took for his answer was an indignant look from Hilary.
An excellent and most patient fisherman used to say that the greatest pleasure of the gentle art was found in the preparation to fish. In the making of flies, and the knotting of gut, and the softening of collars that have caught fish, and the choosing of what to try this time, and how to treat the river. The treasures of memory glow again, and the sparkling stores of hope awake to a lively emulation.
Hilary’s mind had securely landed every fish in the brook at least, and laid it at the feet of Mabel, ere ever his tackle was put to rights, and everything else made ready. At last he was at the very point of starting, with his ever high spirits at their highest pitch, when Mabel (scarcely a whit behind him in the excitement of this great matter) ran in for the fiftieth time at least, but this time wearing her evening frock. That frock was of a delicate buff, and she had a suspicion that it enhanced the clearness of her complexion, and the kind and deep loveliness of her eyes.