But Tremenhere stepped boldly forward; something more than his usual candour forbade disguise, even if practicable: "Mrs. Gillett," he said, "you and I are old friends. Surely you remember the 'sweet youth,' as you were used to call me when I visited Gatestone and your cosey room there!"
Mrs. Gillett shrunk back--she was on her slippery rock: had they been alone, she would gladly have spoken to Miles, before witnesses she durst not. She looked down, and, affecting not to hear, stooped, resting on one toe to support her knee, on which, placing a patten, she very assiduously begun tying its string. Miles laughed aloud: it was a cold, contemptuous, unpained laugh. "Miss Dalzell," he said, lowly bowing, and changing his tone to one of feeling, "I do indeed thank you for to-day, for all your gentle words. Whenever I revisit this spot, here shall I pause to salute the shade of one whose kindness will be ever present with me." He was turning sadly away: "Good bye, Mr. Tremenhere," she cried, extending her hand; "and when we meet again, may you be very differently circumstanced to what you are to-day."
He grasped her hand, and all the speeches ever formed could not have been half so eloquent, as his tremulous "I thank you deeply and sincerely, may your kind wish be heard;" and with a sigh, which we often grant to sympathy, though refusing it to our own hardened feelings, he turned away with Skaife, who shook Minnie kindly by the hand; it was a parting of three very kindred spirits. As they walked off, Mrs. Gillett rose from her occupation. "Your dear aunts sent me to meet you, darling," she said, glancing round cautiously, "and I always like to bring my pattens with me; I don't like damp grass, it don't agree with my rheumatics." At that moment Tremenhere paused in his walk, and turned round, as if irresolute whether to return, and perhaps say something left unsaid. Mrs. Gillett saw it, and, once more stooping, she gave a violent tug to her patten string; she had raised herself three inches upon those kind of young stilts, which even yet old-fashioned country folks wear. "Bless the tie!" she cried, bent nearly double, her back curved like a boy at leap-frog; "bless the tie, it always comes undone, or gets into a knot--I never see such strings!" Minnie saw nothing of this; she could not have comprehended Mrs. Gillett's policy; then, too, her thoughts were more knotted than even the patten tie;--who might unweave and straighten them? Alas! a few moments will often entangle the skein of our existence, knotting up hopes, fears, and cares, in one unravelable mass. Tremenhere turned, and walked on; Minnie had seen the action, and it troubled her, "What had he wished to say? would he tell Skaife? could she serve him in any way? poor fellow--poor Miles Tremenhere!" Every one knows the reputed relationship between friendship and love; they have a family likeness, and are not unfrequently mistaken for one another, till the latter pirouettes, and then we find the arrowless quiver, (_they_ remain with us,) and the extended wings,--who may clip them?