How well I remember that day! It was May time; the drawing-room was sweet with flowers, and through the open windows came the first warm breath of summer. We sat with a little tea-table between us; the clocks were just striking four, and the sunshine lay brightly on the old street and square. I had been in town three months, and my ears had grown accustomed to the ceaseless roll of wheels; the noises that had seemed deafening at first were pleasant now, and I had already begun to love that loud hum of unresting life which is still dear to me.
Not being in the least in awe of Lady Waterville, I never hesitated to speak my mind.
"I don't like Mr. Greystock much," I said, frankly.
"You might like him better, if he were to pay you particular attentions, my dear."
"I don't think I should. I liked our curate very much indeed until he became particularly attentive, and then I turned against him in the most extraordinary way. If I could have married him I would, just to please my uncle and the rector."
"So you are not quite such 'an unlesson'd girl' as I supposed," said Lady Waterville, surveying me with a benign smile. "You have had a lover; but as he didn't succeed, I think he must have played his cards very badly."
"He played them well enough, I believe," I replied, smiling at the remembrance of sundry proofs of devotion.
"I don't mean that he was not in earnest." The widow was still smiling at me across her teacup. "But he must have been terribly deficient in tact. You were in the dullest of country places; you saw nobody, and went nowhere. Under such circumstances, I don't see how any decent man could have failed to win you. My brother used to be rather fastidious about curates, so I suppose your admirer was presentable."
"Decidedly presentable and good-looking; but I got tired of him and his face."
"What was the matter with his face?"