"My name is Leicester Dodson," said the gentleman, a slight, but not imperceptible reserve showing upon his face, and in the tone of his voice as he spoke.
"Mr. Dodson's son!" said Violet, slowly, as if the intelligence were too astonishing to be taken in instanter.
"Mr. Dodson's and Mrs. Dodson's son," he said, with a smile.
For a moment Violet stood still; then her face lit up with its delicious smile, and, with a frank gesture, she held out her hand.
"Then we are neighbors," she said, as Mr. Leicester Dodson, with as much surprise as his courtesy would allow his face to express, took the well-shaped, little hand. "I am Miss Mildmay."
Mr. Leicester dropped her hand as if it had grown red-hot and had burned him. Violet colored then, but understood his gesture of repudiation instantly. "He knows how aunt dislikes his people, and is sorry he rescued my sunshade," she thought.
"I am happy to have been of some slight service to you, Miss Mildmay," he said, coldly, with a careless but distant bow; then he turned and walked slowly down the steep path.
Violet, looking down after him until his bare head had dropped slowly out of sight, then said, audibly:
"Well, that is pride now; but it is proper pride, I think," smiled rather sadly, and returned homeward.
"Aunt!" she said, coming into the drawing-room just before dinner was served, and more quietly than was her wont, "I've had an adventure on the cliffs, startling and melodramatic. My sunshade blew over, and a gentleman was polite enough to go after it."
"My dear!" exclaimed the old lady, thinking it one of her darling's jokes.
"It's true, aunt. A stranger risked his neck--precious, no doubt, to himself and family--for a fifteen-and-six-penny sunshade. Imprudent, but heroic, was it not?"
"Very good and kind, but imprudent, as you say, my dear. Young men are so rash!"
"This one was not," said Violet, picking at the costly fringe on her dress; "he was as calm and cool as--as--a cucumber."
"A stranger," said Mrs. Mildmay, smiling. "Whom can it be, I wonder? Somebody staying at the Wenningfords, no doubt."
"Aunt!" said Violet; then suddenly changing the subject, "do not the vicar and his wife dine with us on Saturday?"
"Yes, my dear, and I have asked Mr. and Mrs. Giles. The vicar is a dear, good man, but----"