That young lady happened to be leaning languidly against her door-post when the couple drew near. She had been looking up the road as though expecting somebody, and at sight of Tom uttered a faint shriek and rushed into the house, closing the door.
“Pore Susan!” cried Lizzie commiseratingly. “It has given her a turn to see you.”
Locke made no reply, but, after a moment, coming to the precipitous descent which led downwards from the bridge, he supported Lizzie very kindly, and was indeed good enough at one particularly stony bit to encircle her waist with his arm. They parted at the Adlams’ door, and Lizzie tripped joyfully upstairs.
“It’s all right,” she cried gaily. “He’s promised to see about gettin’ a new eye, Susan.”
Miss Adlam turned abruptly away from the window where she chanced to be standing, and cast a suspicious glance upon her friend.
“What was Tom Locke’s arm doin’ round your waist?” she inquired.
“Why, the path was so steep,” explained Lizzie, opening her eyes very wide. “What’s the matter, Susan? Bain’t ye so well this evenin’?”
For Susan was making an odd sort of gulping noise.
“Ye sly thing!” she burst out suddenly. “Lard! I wouldn’t be so treecherous—that I wouldn’t; running after en afore my very eyes. Get along with ’ee, do. I’ll have nothin’ more to say to ’ee.”
Lizzie stared for a moment, thunderstruck, her usually rosy face turning quite pale, and tears presently rushing to her eyes.
“Well, Susan,” she said, as soon as she had recovered her breath, “I didn’t think it of ’ee to turn on me so sudden. I never did nothin’ but what was for yer good. I thought it ’ud plaze ye. But there, you can manage en for yourself now. I don’t care if Tom Locke doesn’t get no new eye at all.”
She hurried from the room, leaving Susan convulsively choking and sobbing.
“Dear heart! dear heart! she’s took wi’ the westeria again,” groaned Mrs. Adlam, as she went creaking up the stairs.
But little Lizzie made no response. Her cheeks were red enough now, and she metaphorically shook the dust of the Adlam premises from her feet as she closed the garden gate behind her.
She kept religiously away from her former friend throughout the week, but when Sunday came round that young lady actually condescended to pay her a visit. Susan arrived attired in white, with a wreath of daisies round her hat, and a great bunch of monthly roses in her waistband; the coils of her fair hair shone like gold in the sunlight—she was a harmony of white and pink and yellow, very pleasant to behold, particularly as her face was flushed with unwonted excitement, and her eyes were bright and eager.