She stood right before our wicket-gate;but she had evidently quite forgotten us,so happy was she with Mrs.Tod's bonny boy,until the landlady made some remark about "letting the gentlemen by."Then,with a slight start,drawing her hood back over her head,the young lady stepped aside.
In passing her,John raised his eyes,as was natural enough.For me,I could hardly take mine from her,such a pleasant creature was she to behold.She half smiled--he bowed,which she returned,courteously,and we both went in-doors.I told him this was a good beginning of acquaintance with our neighbour.
"Not at all,no acqaintance;a mere civility between two people living under the same roof.It will never be more.""Probably not."
I am afraid John was disappointed at my "probably."I am afraid that when he stood at our window,contemplating the little group which filled up our wicket-gate,he missed some one out of the three--which,I suspect,was neither Mrs.Tod nor yet the baby.
"I like her face very much better now,David.Do you?"It was a very curious fact,which I never noticed till afterwards,that though there had been some lapse of time before I hazarded this remark,we both intuitively supplied the noun to that indefinite personal pronoun.
"A good--nay,a noble face;though still,with those irregular features,I can't--really I can't--call her beautiful.""Nor I."
"She bowed with remarkable grace,too.I think,John,for the first time in our lives,we may say we have seen a LADY.""Most certainly a lady."
"Nay,I only meant that,girl as she is,she is evidently accustomed to what is called 'society.'Which makes it the more likely that her father is the Mr.March who was cousin to the Brithwoods.An odd coincidence.""A very odd coincidence."
After which brief reply John relapsed into taciturnity.
More than once that morning we recurred to the subject of our neighbours--that is,I did--but John was rather saturnine and uncommunicative.Nay,when,as Mrs.Tod was removing the breakfast,I ventured to ask her a harmless question or two--who Mr.March was,and where he came from?--I was abruptly reproved,the very minute our good landlady had shut the door,for my tendency to "gossip."At which I only laughed,and reminded him that he had ingeniously scolded me after,not before,I had gained the desired information--namely,that Mr.March was a gentleman of independent property--that he had no friends hereabouts,and that he usually lived in Wales.
"He cannot be our Mr.March,then."
"No,"said John,with an air of great relief.
I was amused to see how seriously he took such a trifle;ay,many a time that day I laughed at him for evincing such great sympathy over our neighbours,and especially--which was plain enough to see,though he doubtless believed he entirely disguised it--for that interest which a young man of twenty would naturally take in a very charming and personable young woman.Ay,naturally,as I said to myself,for I admired her too,extremely.
It seems strange now to call to mind that morning,and our light-hearted jests about Miss March.Strange that Destiny should often come thus,creeping like a child to our very doors;we hardly notice it,or send it away with a laugh;it comes so naturally,so simply,so accidentally,as it were,that we recognise it not.We cannot believe that the baby intruder is in reality the king of our fortunes;the ruler of our lives.But so it is continually;and since IT IS,it must be right.
We finished the morning by reading Shakspeare--Romeo and Juliet--at which the old folio seemed naturally to open.There is a time--a sweet time,too,though it does not last--when to every young mind the play of plays,the poem of poems,is Romeo and Juliet.We were at that phase now.
John read it all through to me--not for the first time either;and then,thinking I had fallen asleep,he sat with the book on his knee,gazing out of the open window.
It was a warm summer day--breathless,soundless--a day for quietness and dreams.Sometimes a bee came buzzing among the roses,in and away again,like a happy thought.Nothing else was stirring;not a single bird was to be seen or heard,except that now and then came a coo of the wood-pigeons among the beech-trees--a low,tender voice--reminding one of a mother's crooning over a cradled child;or of two true lovers standing clasped heart to heart,in the first embrace,which finds not,and needs not,a single word.
John sat listening.What was he thinking about?Why that strange quiver about his mouth?--why that wonderful new glow,that infinite depth of softness in his eyes?
I closed mine.He never knew I saw him.He thought I slept placidly through that half-hour;which seemed to him as brief as a minute.To me it was long--ah,so long!as I lay pondering with an intensity that was actual pain,on what must come some time,and,for all Iknew,might even now be coming.
