.

'And she asked you to come for me?' Anne inquired.

This was a question which the trumpet-major had been dreading during the
whole of his walk thither. 'Well, she didn't exactly ask me,' he said
rather lamely, but still in a manner to show that Mrs. Garland had
indirectly signified such to be her wish. In reality Mrs. Garland had
not addressed him at all on the subject. She had merely spoken to his
father on finding that her daughter did not return, and received an
assurance from the miller that the precious girl was doubtless quite
safe. John heard of this inquiry, and, having a pass that evening,
resolved to relieve Mrs. Garland's mind on his own responsibility. Ever
since his morning view of Festus under her window he had been on thorns
of anxiety, and his thrilling hope now was that she would walk back with
him.

He shifted his foot nervously as he made the bold request. Anne felt at
once that she would go. There was nobody in the world whose care she
would more readily be under than the trumpet-major's in a case like the
present. He was their nearest neighbour's son, and she had liked his
single-minded ingenuousness from the first moment of his return home.

When they had started on their walk, Anne said in a practical way, to
show that there was no sentiment whatever in her acceptance of his
company, 'Mother was much alarmed about me, perhaps?'

'Yes; she was uneasy,' he said; and then was compelled by conscience to
make a clean breast of it. 'I know she was uneasy, because my father
said so. But I did not see her myself. The truth is, she doesn't know I
am come.'

Anne now saw how the matter stood; but she was not offended with him.
What woman could have been? They walked on in silence, the respectful
trumpet-major keeping a yard off on her right as precisely as if that
measure had been fixed between them. She had a great feeling of civility
toward him this evening, and spoke again. 'I often hear your trumpeters
blowing the calls. They do it beautifully, I think.'

'Pretty fair; they might do better,' said he, as one too well-mannered to
make much of an accomplishment in which he had a hand.

'And you taught them how to do it?'

'Yes, I taught them.'

'It must require wonderful practice to get them into the way of beginning
and finishing so exactly at one time. It is like one throat doing it
all. How came you to be a trumpeter, Mr. Loveday?'

'Well, I took to it naturally when I w