Part 20 (1/2)

”You are Mr. Campion, I think?” she said. ”Yes, I shall be very glad of your help. I need not introduce myself, I see. Jack has been very naughty: he ran away from his nurse this morning, and I said that I would bring him back. And now he has fallen into the brook.”

”We must get him back,” said Sydney, rather amused at her matter-of-fact tone. ”I will go over for him.”

”No, I am afraid you must not do that,” she answered. ”There is a plank a little further down the stream; we will go there.”

But Sydney was across the water by this time. He lifted the child lightly in his arms and strode back across the stones, scarcely wetting himself at all. Then he set the boy down at her side.

”There!” he said, ”that is better than going down to the plank. Now, young man, you must run home again as fast as you can, or you will catch cold.”

”I am very much obliged to you,” said the young lady, looking at him, as he thought, rather earnestly, but without a smile. ”Jack, you know, is Sir John Pynsent's eldest son.”

”So I divined. I think he would get home more quickly if I took one of his hands and you took the other, and we hurried him up the hill; don't you think so?”

He had no interest at all in Jack, but he wanted to talk with this dark-eyed violin-playing damsel. Sydney had indulged in a good deal of flirtation in his time, and he had no objection to whiling away an hour in the company of any pretty girl; and yet there was some sort of dignity about this girl's manner which warned him to be a little upon his guard.

”You are member for Vanebury,” she said, rather abruptly, when they had dragged little Jack some distance up the gra.s.sy slope.

”I have that honor.”

”I hope,” she said, with a mixture of gentleness and decision which took him by surprise, ”that you mean to pay some attention to the condition of the working-cla.s.ses in Vanebury?”

”Well, I don't know; is there any special reason?”

”They are badly paid, badly housed, over-worked and under-educated,” she said, succinctly; ”and if the member for Vanebury would bestir himself in their cause, I think that something might be done.”

”Even a member is not omnipotent, I'm afraid.”

”No, but he has influence. You are bound to use it for good,” she returned.

Sydney raised his eyebrows. He was not used to being lectured on his duties, and this young lady's remarks struck him as slightly impertinent. He glanced at her almost as if he would have told her so; but she looked so very pretty and so very young that he could no more check her than he could have checked a child.

”You have very pretty scenery about here,” he said, by way of changing the conversation.

The girl's face drooped at once; she did not answer.

”What an odd young woman she is,” said Sydney to himself. ”What an odd governess for the children!”

Suddenly she looked up, with a very sweet bright look. ”I am afraid I offended you,” she said, deprecatingly. ”I did not mean to say anything wrong. I am so much interested in the Vanebury working people, although we are here some miles distant from them, that when I heard you were coming I made up my mind at once that I would speak to you.”

”You have--friends, perhaps, in that district?” said Sydney.

”N--no--not exactly,” she said, hesitating. ”But I know a good deal about Vanebury.”

”Nan goes there very often, don't you, Nan?” said little Jack, suddenly interposing. ”And papa says you do more harm than good.”

”Nan” colored high. ”You should not repeat what papa says,” she answered, severely. ”You have often been told that it is naughty.”

”But it's true,” Jack murmured, doggedly. And Sydney could not help smiling at the discomfited expression on ”Nan's” face.

However, he was--or thought he was--quite equal to the occasion. He changed the subject, and began talking adroitly about her tastes and occupations. Nan soon became at ease with him and answered his questions cheerfully, although she seemed puzzled now and then by the strain of compliment into which he had a tendency to fall. The house was reached at last; and Jack s.n.a.t.c.hed his hands from those of his companions, and ran indoors. Nan halted at a side-door, and now spoke with the sweet earnestness that impressed Sydney even more than her lovely face.