A Tale of a Lonely Parish | Page 7

him no peace on the way asking him
again and again to repeat the answers to the questions which had been
proposed, reckoning up the ones he had answered wrong and the ones
he thought he might have answered right, and coming each time to a
different conclusion, finally lighting a huge brierwood pipe and
swearing "that it was a beastly shame to subject human beings to such
awful torture." John calmed him by saying he fancied Cornelius had
"got through"; for John's words were a species of gospel to Cornelius.
By the time they reached the vicarage Angleside felt sanguine of his
success.
The vicar was not visible. It was a strange and unheard of thing--there
were visitors in the drawing-room. This doubtless accounted for the
fact that the fly from the Duke's Head was standing on the opposite side
of the road. The two young men went into their study, which was on
the ground floor and opened upon the passage which led to the
drawing-room from the little hall. Angleside remarked that by leaving
the door open they would catch a glimpse of the visitor when he went
out. But the visitor stayed long. The curiosity of the two was wrought

up to a high pitch; it was many months since there had been a real
visitor at the vicarage. Angleside suggested going out and finding old
Reynolds--he always knew everything that was going on.
"If we only wait long enough," said Short philosophically, "they are
sure to come out."
"Perhaps," returned Cornelius rather doubtfully.
"They" did come out. The drawing-room door opened and there was a
sound of voices. It was a woman's voice, and a particularly sweet voice,
too. Still no one came down the passage. The lady seemed to be
lingering in taking her leave. Then there was a sound of small feet and
suddenly a little girl stood before the open door of the study, looking
wonderingly at the two young men. Short thought he had never seen
such a beautiful child. She could not have been more than seven or
eight years old, and was not tall for her age; a delicate little figure, all
in black, with long brown curls upon her shoulders, flowing abundantly
from beneath a round black sailor's hat that was set far back upon her
head. The child's face was rather pale than very fair, of a beautiful
transparent paleness, with the least tinge of colour in the cheeks; her
great violet eyes gazed wonderingly into the study, and her lips parted
in childlike uncertainty, while her little gloved hand rested on the
door-post as though to get a sense of security from something so solid.
It was only for a moment. Both the young fellows smiled at the child
unconsciously. Perhaps she thought they were laughing at her; she
turned and ran away again; then passed a second time, stealing a long
glance at the two strangers, but followed immediately by the lady, who
was probably her mother, and whose voice had been heard for the last
few moments. The lady, too, glanced in as she went by, and John Short
lost his heart then and there; not that the lady was beautiful as the little
girl was, but because there was something in her face, in her figure, in
her whole carriage, that moved the boy suddenly as she looked at him
and sent the blood rushing to his cheeks and forehead.
She seemed young, but he never thought of her age. In reality she was
nine-and-twenty years old but looked younger. She was pale, far paler

than the little girl, but she had those same violet eyes, large, deep and
sorrowful, beneath dark, smooth eyebrows that arched high and rose a
little in the middle. Her mouth was perhaps large for her face but her
full lips curved gently and seemed able to smile, though she was not
smiling. Her nose was perhaps too small--her face was far from
faultless--and it had the slightest tendency to turn up instead of down,
but it was so delicately modelled that an artist would have pardoned it
that deviation from the classic. Thick brown hair waved across her
white forehead and was hidden under the black bonnet and the veil
thrown back over it. She was dressed in black and the close-fitting
gown showed off with unconscious vanity the lines of a perfectly
moulded and perfectly supple figure. But it was especially her eyes
which attracted John's sudden attention at that first glance, her violet
eyes, tender, sad, almost pathetic, seeming to ask sympathy and
marvellously able to command it.
It was but for a moment that she paused. Then came the vicar,
following her from the drawing-room, and all three went on. Presently
Short heard the front door