“What for?” asked Mrs. Farrell, breaking abruptly from her pensive mood.
“Those brakes,” said the girl over her shoulder, having now got by.
“Oh, come! Won’t you go, too?” cried Mrs. Farrell. “It’s an old engagement. Wait, please!” she called to the girls, and ran in to get her hat, while they loitered down the path.
Gilbert walked forward to join them, and Easton stayed for Mrs. Farrell, who delayed a little, and then came out in walking-gear which had the advantage over the dresses of the young girls that foliage or plumage has over dress always—it seemed part of her.
“If you’ll be so kind—yes,” she said, giving Easton her light shawl, while she fitted her hat cord under the knot of her hair. “It’s a little coolish sometimes in the deep woods, and it’s best to bring one. Don’t you think,” she asked, dazzling him with the radiant, immortal youth of her glance and smile, “that the worst thing about growing older is that you have to be so careful about your miserable, perishable body? I hope I’ve not made you do anything against your principles, Mr. Easton, in getting you to go with me after brakes on Sunday? We don’t often do such things, ourselves.”
“No,” said Easton; “unfortunately, I have no principles on that point. I suppose it’s a thing to be regretted.”
“Oh yes, indeed!” said Mrs. Farrell, earnestly. “I think one ought always to be one thing or the other. I find nothing so wretched as this sort of betwixt-and-betweenity that most people live in nowadays; and I envy Rachel Woodward her fixed habits of religious observance. I wish she could have gone with us this afternoon; but the Woodwards never do. You must get acquainted with her, Mr. Easton. She’s a splendid girl; she has a great deal of talent and a great deal of character; more than all of us lady boarders put together—except Mrs. Gilbert, of course.”
It vaguely troubled Easton, he did not know why, to have her talk of Rachel Woodward; at that moment it vexed him that there should be any other woman in the world than herself. But he contrived to say that Mrs. Gilbert had mentioned Miss Woodward’s talent for drawing.
“Isn’t she nice—Mrs. Gilbert?” asked Mrs. Farrell, looking into Easton’s face, and no doubt seeing there a consciousness of his having heard from Mrs. Gilbert something not to her advantage. “She’s the only one of our boarders that one cares to talk with; she’s such a humorous old thing that I like to hear her even when I know she’s looking me through and through. She’s a very keen observer, and such a wonderful judge of character! Don’t you think so?”
“I hardly know; I’m scarcely acquainted with her or the people she talks about.”