The consciousness of my
ridiculous appearance rushed upon me in a flood, and, having but
small experience of womankind save as represented by Mistress
Pennyquick and our maids, I must stand stock still, red to the
roots of my hair.
The girl had been walking towards me, swinging by its riband a
garden hat, for the air was hot. The dog ran to her, with a bark
that might have been of reassurance. She stopped, and, with a
pretty shyness far short of embarrassment, said:
"Are you better now, poor man?"
I mumbled something, I know not what, and she smiled and passed on.
Then I felt I would have given anything to live that moment again.
"Dolt! Fool! Jackass!" I called myself. "What a baby she must think
me! 'Poor man!' she said. Good heavens! Does she think I am forty?"
And thus fuming at my tongue-tied awkwardness, I went along the
path.
I walked up and down for some time, and was still pacing along with
my back to the house, when I heard a light footstep behind me, and
for a foolish moment fancied it was the girl whose aspect and kind
words had lately put me in such a commotion. But on turning about,
I felt relief and disappointment mingled (the disappointment was, I
think, the greater) to see that it was only Susan.
"Measter wants tha," she said.
I stepped along in silence beside her, she taking three steps for
my one, and giggling to sicken a man.
"Tha'lt never get a sweetheart," she said by and by.
"Oh! and why not?" I asked.
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