"It seems so strange to me—a clergyman's daughter belonging formerly to a small parish—that every individual in it should not be known to the vicar. It ought not to be so, I think."
"I entirely agree with you. But I believe Mr. Thomas and the general never exactly understood or suited each other."
"I don't know—I never heard."
"I am myself not utterly unknown to every member of the family. I was at school with the young gentleman who married Miss Melwyn.... Yet why do I recall it? He has probably forgotten me altogether.... And yet, perhaps, not altogether. Possibly he might remember James St. Leger;" and he sighed.
It was a light, suppressed sigh. It seemed to escape him without his observing it.
Lettice felt unusually interested in this conversation, little as there may appear in it to interest any one; but there was something in the look and tone of the young man that exercised a great power over her imagination. His being of the cloth—a clergyman—may account for what may seem rather strange in her entering into conversation with him. She had been brought up to feel profound respect for every one in holy orders; and, moreover, the habits of her life at one time, when she had sunk to such depths of poverty, had, in a considerable degree, robbed her of the conventional reserve of general society. She had been so used at one time to be accosted and to accost without thinking of the ceremony of an introduction, that she probably forgot the absence of it in the present case, more than another equally discreet girl might have done.
The young man, on his part, seemed under the influence of a strange charm. He continued to walk by her side, but he had ceased to speak. He seemed lost in thought—melancholy thought. It certainly would seem as if the allusion to Edgar's home, and his own school life, had roused a host of painful recollections, in which he was for the time absorbed.
So they followed the windings of the deep hollow lane together. Necessarily it would seem, for this lane appeared to defy the proverb and have no turning. But that it had one we know—and to it the little party came at last. A gate led to some fields belonging to the estate of the Hazels—Lettice and the nurse prepared to open it and enter.
"Good morning, sir," said Lettice, "this is my way; I will strive to do something for the poor woman you recommended to me, and I will mention your recommendation to Mrs. Melwyn."
He started as if suddenly awakened when she spoke; but he only said, "Will you? It will be right and kind. Thank you, in her name." And, with a grave, abstracted sort of salute, he left her, and pursued his way.