ad a number of pupils; but
in the evening when we sat there, smoking--our talk would sooner or
later--come round to her. Her bedroom opened out of that sitting--room;
he took me in once and showed me a narrow little room the width of a
passage, fresh and white, with a photograph of her mother above the bed,
and an empty basket for a dog or cat." He broke off with a vexed air,
and resumed sternly, as if trying to bind himself to the narration of
his more important facts: "She was then fifteen--her mother had been
dead twelve years--a beautiful, face, her mother's; it had been her
death that sent Dalton to fight with us. Well, sir, one day in August,
very hot weather, he proposed a run into the country, and who should
meet us on the platform when we arrived but Eilie, in a blue sun-bonnet
and frock-flax blue, her favourite colour. I was angry with Dalton for
not telling me that we should see her; my clothes were not quite--my
hair wanted cutting. It was black then, sir," he added, tracing a
pattern in the darkness with his stick. "She had a little donkey-cart;
she drove, and, while we walked one on each side, she kept looking at
me from under her sunbonnet. I must tell you that she never laughed--her
eyes danced, her cheeks would go pink, and her hair shake about on her
neck, but she never laughed. Her old nurse, Lucy, a very broad, good
woman, had married the proprietor of the inn in the village there. I
have never seen anything like that inn: sweethriar up to the roof! And
the scent--I am very susceptible to scents!" His head drooped, and the
cigarette fell from his hand. A train passing beneath sent up a shower
of sparks. He started, and went on: "We had our lunch in the parlour--I
remember that room very well, for I spent the happiest days of my life
afterwards in that inn.... We went into a meadow after lunch, and
my friend Dalton fell asleep. A wonderful thing happened then. Eilie
whispered to me, 'Let's have a jolly time.' She took me for the most
glorious walk. The river was close by. A lovely stream, your river
Thames, so calm and broad; it is like the spirit of your people. I was
bewitched; I forgot my friend, I thought of nothing but how to keep her
to myself. It was such a day! There are days that are the devil's,
but that was truly one of God's. She took me to a little pond under an
elm-tree, and we dragged it, we two, an hour, for a kind of tiny red
worm to feed some creature that she had. We found them in the