‘You have never been out of Berks, have you, Mary,’ said her cousin, ‘you home-keeping girl?--you were educated close by here, were you not?’
‘What people call educated,’ said Mary, with her soft, happy laugh. ‘I never learned anything. It was at Thornycroft, not more than ten miles off. But it is so odd that you should remember, Ben.’
‘Do you recollect a Miss Tracy there?’ said Ben, with a slight breathlessness,--the road was so steep; was that the cause?
‘Miss Tracy? Oh, you mean Millicent. What! do you know her?’ cried Mary, turning round upon him. He was taken by surprise, and perhaps his face betrayed him. At all events, she grew pale in a moment, poor child, and leaned her arm against one of the beech-trees. That was the moment at which she often thought the string of the bow twanged and the arrow came home.
‘I have met her,’ said Ben;--‘that is, I have seen a good deal of her; and she seemed to be fond of you.’
‘Millicent Tracy!’ repeated Mary, with a little tremulous movement. ‘Oh, I don’t think she was fond of me.’
‘You do not seem, at least, to have been fond of her,’ said Ben, with a little pique in his tone.
‘She was not in my set,’ said Mary, plucking up a little spirit. ‘We were younger. She was so pretty,--oh, so pretty! We all thought there never was any one like her. Is she as pretty now?’ Mary asked, with an attempt at interest; but her tone was not so eager and hearty as her words.
‘She is not pretty at all;--she is beautiful,’ said Ben, his passion betraying itself in spite of him. And then they stood silent, looking down on the river, and for some minutes not another word was said. It was Ben who was the first to speak. The man was angry, after the fashion of men, with the girl who up to this moment had been so sweetly ready to adopt what tone he pleased to give the conversation. ‘I seem to have been unfortunate in my subject,’ he said, turning abruptly to go in. ‘Miss Tracy, I see, cannot have been a favourite among the girls at Thornycroft. She was too beautiful, I suppose.’
‘Indeed, no,’ said Mary, with a little indignation, following him. ‘We were all very proud of her beauty. Though I don’t think we thought of beauty. We thought she was very pretty,--oh, so pretty! No girl at Thornycroft was ever so nice-looking; and nice too,’ she continued with a hesitating attempt to please him. ‘I always did think that she was nice, too.’