“I can’t wait. William Jones wants to send me a message over to Pencroes, and if I don’t go, he’ll scold.”
“Very well, Matt.”
“But I’ll come,” she said, smiling, “tomorrow; and I’ll come in my Sunday clothes, somehow.”
“Don’t trouble. On reflection, I think you look nicer as you are.”
She lifted her hat from the ground, and still hesitated as she put it on.
“Upon my word,” cried the artist, “those Welsh hats are very becoming. Good-bye, Matt.”
She took his outstretched hand and waited an instant, with her warm, brown cheek in profile temptingly near his lips. But he did not yield to the temptation, and after a moment’s further hesitation, in which I fear she betrayed some little disappointment, Matt released her hand and sprang hurriedly away.
“Upon my word,” muttered the young man, as he watched her figure receding in the distance, “the situation is growing more and more troublesome! I shall have to make a clean bolt of it, if this goes on. Fancy being caught in a flirtation with a wild ocean waif, a child of the wilderness, who never even heard of Lindley Murray? Really, it will never do!”