Part 4 (1/2)
”That is what my uncle says; he is always asking me if I cannot make myself more like the girls of Rashleigh.”
”I hope you never will,” he cried, warmly.
”I do not know how,” she said. ”I must always be what G.o.d and nature made me.”
”They made you fair enough,” he whispered.
And then he owned to himself that she was not like other girls.
She drew back proudly, swiftly; no smile came to her lips, no laughing light to her eyes.
”Speak to me as you would to one in your own rank, my lord,” she said, haughtily. ”Though fate has made me a farmer's niece, nature made me----”
”A queen,” he interrupted.
And she was satisfied with the acknowledgment. They sat down under one of the great oak-trees, a great carpet of bluebells under their feet.
Leone looked thoughtful; she gathered some sprays of bluebells and held them in her hands, her white fingers toying with the little flowers, then she spoke:
”I know,” she said, ”that no lady--for instance, in your own rank of life--would walk through this wood with you on a summer's afternoon.”
A laugh came over his handsome, happy young face.
”I do not know. I am inclined to think the opposite.”
”I do not understand what you would call etiquette; but I am quite sure you would never ask one.”
”I am not sure. If I had met one in what you are pleased to call my rank of life last night by the mill-stream, looking as you looked, I am quite sure that I should ask her to walk with me and talk with me at any time.”
”I should like to see your world,” she said. ”I know the world of the poor and the middle cla.s.s, but I do not know yours.”
”You will know some day,” he said, quietly. ”Do not be angry with me if I tell you that in all my world I have never seen one like you. Do not be angry, I am not flattering you, I am saying just what I think.”
”Why do you think that some day I may see your world?” she asked.
”Because with your face you are sure to marry well,” he replied.
”I shall marry where I love,” said Leone.
”And you may love where you will,” he replied; ”no man will ever resist you.”
”I would rather you did not speak to me in that fas.h.i.+on,” she said, gravely; and Lord Chandos found, that seated by this farmer's niece, in the wood full of bluebells, he was compelled to be more circ.u.mspect than if he were speaking to some countess-elect in a Mayfair drawing-room.
Leone, when she had set him quite straight in his place, as she called it; when she had taught him that he was to treat her with as much, if not more courtesy, than he bestowed on those of his own rank; Leone, when she had done all this, felt quite at home with him. She had never had an opportunity for exercising her natural talent for conversation; her uncle was quite incapable of following or understanding her; the girls who were her companions lost themselves in trying to follow her flights of fancy.
But now there was some one who understood her; talk as she would, he appreciated it; he knew her quotations; no matter how original her ideas were he understood and followed them; it was the first time she had ever had the opportunity of talking to an educated gentleman.
How she enjoyed it; his wit seemed waiting on hers, and seemed to catch fire from it; his eyes caught fire from hers. She described her simple life and its homely surroundings in words that burned.
It was in her simple, sweet, pathetic description of stolid Uncle Robert that she excelled herself; she painted his character with the most graphic touches.