Mr. Marsden's face being the last I saw at night, was it wonderful that I should dream of it, both waking and sleeping, more especially as his eyes were so often turned to mine? I was glad of this, and sorry at the same time, for I knew this happy holiday season would soon come to an end.
I will not describe Mr. Marsden's looks. Let each reader picture her own hero, and he will do to represent mine, so far as she is concerned.
I found out quite incidentally that Mrs. Jennings had made her male lodgers acquainted with my story so far as she knew it, just as she had told me theirs.
One lovely night I went early to bed, leaving my lattice window open. I lay awake, enjoying the moonlight, which came shimmering through the creeping plants that veiled the window, and the unbroken silence that prevailed.
It was a realisation of that expressive line in Gray's Elegy—
"And all the air a solemn stillness holds."
All at once, I heard Mr. Marsden's voice, and knew that the young men must be sitting in the rustic porch below.
"Yes, Winn," he said, "you are right in saying that this is becoming dangerous ground to me, Miss Anstey has attracted me as no other girl ever did, and all I have heard about her has served to increase the attraction. She is brave-hearted, of a bright, cheery temperament, and, if I am not mistaken, essentially true, modest, and pure-minded."
"I believe she is all these," replied Mr. Winn. "The very fact of her acting as she has done under this roof is a proof of her modesty and straightforwardness. How many girls would have been here, alone as she is, without availing themselves of such opportunities for flirtation as are afforded by the neighbourhood of two idlers such as you and me?"
"I hope a good many. You know my feeling about such things, and that the reverence and love I entertain for my mother make me wish to think well of every woman."