“Never trouble your head,” said Irma, “there never was a Maitland yet but gat his own will till he met with a Maitland to counter him!”
“Lalor!” I suggested. At the name she twisted her face into an expression of great scorn.
“Lalor!” she said; “well, and have I not countered him?”
She had, of course, but as far as I remembered there was something to be said about another person who had at least helped. Now that is the worst of girls. They are always for taking all the credit to themselves.
It was a grave day when I quitted Eden Valley for the first time. Every one was affected, the women folk, my mother, my grandmother, even Aunt Jen, went the length of tears. That is, all with only two exceptions, my father and Miss Irma. My father was glad and triumphant—confident that, though never the scholar Freddie Esquillant was bound to be, I was yet stronger in the more material parts of learning—those which most pleased the ordinary run of regents and professors.
I had already seen Irma early in the morning in that clump of trees beyond the well where the flowering currants made a scented wall, and in the midst the lilac bushes grow up into a cavern of delicately tinted, constantly tremulous shade.
I told her of my fears, whereat she scorned them and me, bidding me go forward bravely.
“I have never promised to be anybody’s friend before,” she said; “I shall not break my word!”
“But, Irma,” I urged, for indeed I could not keep the words back, they being on the tip of my tongue, “what if in the meantime, when I am away so far and seeing you so little, you should promise somebody else to be more than a friend!”
She stood a moment with the severe look I had grown to fear upon her face. Then she smiled at me, at once amused and forgiving.