"But I thought you liked it, Cissy," said Hugh John, who did not know everything.
"Like it!" echoed Cissy; "I've got to do it. And if they dreamed I didn't like it, they'd think I hadn't proper manners, and make me stop just twice as long. Mother wants me to acquire a good society something-or-other, so that's why I've to stop and make tea, and pretend to like to talk to Mr. Burnham."
"Oh—him," said Hugh John; "he isn't half bad. And he's a ripping good wicket-keep!"
"I dare say," retorted Cissy, "that's all very well for you. He talks to you about cricket and W. G.'s scores—I've heard him. But he speaks to me in that peeky far-away voice from the back of his throat, like he does in the service when he comes to the bit about 'young children'—and what do you think the Creature says?"
"I dunno," said Hugh John, with a world-weary air, as if the eccentricities of clergymen in silk waistcoats were among the things that no fellow could possibly find out.
"Well, he said that he hoped the time would soon come when a young lady of so much decision of character (that's me!) would be able to assist him in his district visiting."
"What's 'decision of character' when he's at home?" asked Hugh John flippantly.
"Oh, nothing—only one of the things parsons say. It doesn't mean anything—not in particular!" replied the widely informed Cissy. "But did you ever hear such rot?"
And for the first time her eyes met his with a quaintly questioning look, which somehow carried in it a reminiscence of the stile and the ivy bush. Cissy's eyes were never quite (Hugh John has admitted as much to me in a moment of confidence)—never quite the same after the incident of the orchard. On this occasion Hugh John instantly averted his own, and looked stolidly at the ground.
"Perhaps Mr. Burnham has heard that you went with medicine and stuff to the gipsy camp," he said after a pause, trying to find an explanation of the apparently indefensible folly of his cricketing hero. Cissy had not thought of this before.