"Is he handsome?"
"Decidedly not."
"Is he clever?"
"He looks intelligent, but I can't tell, I only saw him for a moment. He stopped me in the lane to inquire his way to the parsonage; I should scarcely know him again."
Dorothy tripped off to her own chamber, to avoid further questions, and to take off her muslin dress, and substitute a more homely garb in which to cook Mr. Rushmere's supper.
The next morning was the day for receiving her music lesson. Dorothy felt very much disinclined to walk to the parsonage to take it; though she knew that old Piper would be raging mad at her want of punctuality. She had no wish to encounter Mr. Fitzmorris, or meet again the keen glance of his wonderful eyes. It was evident that he considered her a very inferior person, and Dorothy's pride had progressed with her education, and she began to feel that she was not undeserving of a certain degree of respect from persons who might happen to move in a higher class than her own.
Not being able to frame a plausible excuse for her absence from the cottage, she was compelled to put on her bonnet, and dare the ordeal she so much dreaded.
It was a lovely morning in the middle of May, and she gathered some branches of hawthorn in full blossom for the children as she went along.
On coming up to the small white gate, that opened into the lawn fronting the parsonage, she saw Mr. Fitzmorris seated on the grass, under the shade of the tall bowering sycamore tree that grew in the centre of it, with all the little ones gathered about him, laughing and romping with them to their hearts' content, his laugh as loud, and his voice as merry and joyous as the rest.
Could this be the cold, proud looking man she met in the lane last night? His hat lay tossed at a distance upon the grass, the noble head was bare, and wee Mary was sticking bluebells and cowslips among the fair curls that clustered over it. A glow was on the pale face, and the eyes sparkled and danced with pleasure.