“I am so sorry your son has to walk,” she said politely; but Dr. Lambert only smiled.
“A walk will not hurt him, and our roads are very steep.”
As he spoke, the driver got down, and Bessie begged leave to follow his example.
“We live on the top of the hill,” she said apologetically; “and I cannot bear being dragged up by a tired horse, as father knows by this time;” and she joined her brother, who came up at that moment.
Tom had kept the fly well in sight.
“That’s an awfully jolly-looking girl, Betty,” he observed, with the free and easy criticism of his age. “I don’t know when I have seen a prettier girl; uncommon style, too—fair hair and dark eyes; she is a regular beauty.”
“That is what boys always think about,” returned Bessie, with good-humored contempt. “Girls are different. I should be just as much interested in Miss Sefton if she were plain. I suppose you mean to be charmed with her conversation, and to find all her remarks witty because she has les beaux yeux.”
“I scorn to take notice of such spiteful remarks,” returned Tom, with a shrug. “Girls are venomous to each other. I believe they hate to hear one another praised, even by a brother.”
“Hold your tongue, Tom,” was the rejoinder. “It takes my breath away to argue with you up this hill. I am not too ill-natured to give up my own bed to Miss Sefton. Let us hurry on, there’s a good boy, or they will arrive before us.”
As this request coincided with Tom’s private wishes, he condescended to walk faster; and the brother and sister were soon at the top of the hill, and had turned into a pretty private road bordered with trees, with detached houses standing far back, with long, sloping strips of gardens. The moon had now risen, and Bessie could distinctly see a little group of girls, with shawls over their heads, standing on the top of a flight of stone steps leading down to a large shady garden belonging to an old-fashioned house. The front entrance was round the corner, but the drawing-room window was open, and the girls had gained the road by the garden way, and stood shivering and expectant; while the moon illumined the grass terraces that ran steeply from the house, and shone on the meadow that skirted the garden.