'He must be a fine fellow!' heartily said Philip, when Lilian quoted some remark of Robert Wentworth's.
'He is good,' simply replied Lilian. 'Not very fine, but good.'
'If you interpret what I say so very literally as all that, I shall have to be very careful in the choice of my words, Miss Maitland,' laughed Philip.
'I do not want you to be disappointed in him, even at first; and he is plain, and rather old.'
Plain, and rather old! That was not Robert Wentworth to me; but I recollected that I was not a girl between seventeen and eighteen, and made no comment.
Lilian looked flushed and nervous as she slipped her hand into mine, and went on in a low grave voice to him: 'Could not Mary's sister be—Lilian?'
He bowed low, with a murmured word or two about his appreciation of the privilege; and seeing that her face was still shadowed by the recollection which his use of her mother's name had called up, he presently contrived to lead to less embarrassing subjects.
After early dinner—Philip had begged that no difference should be made in the hour on his account—we went into the woods, to pass the afternoon under the grand old trees; taking with us books, needlework, sketching materials, and what not, with the persuasion that we did not mean to be wholly idle. Philip said that it was done for the purpose of impressing him with due reverence for our talents; but declared that it was only idle people who could not enjoy being idle. He spread all the aids and appliances picturesquely about us.
'There; that ought to do, I think. The most conscientious of workers ought to be satisfied with that—no one would venture to call you idle now!' he ejaculated, throwing himself on to the turf beside us, his hands clasped at the back of his head and his gray eyes full of fun and mischief.
'The idea of your thinking you will have nothing to do but watch us!' said Lilian. 'We shall want lots of help; shall we not, Mary? water fetched, and pencils cut, and'——