'_Lend_ it to me--and after you! Bury-me-wick if I look at a leaf of it,'
she retorted in high dudgeon. 'Take it, lass; give it him yourself--I'll
not,' and she popped it into my hand, and made a sulky step back.
'My cousin is very much obliged,' I said, returning the book, and smiling
for her, and he took it smiling also and said--
'I think if I had known how very well you draw, Miss Ruthyn, I should have
hesitated about showing you my poor scrawls. But these are not my best, you
know; Lady Knollys will tell you that I can really do better--a great deal
better, I think.'
And then with more apologies for what he called his impertinence, he took
his leave, and I felt altogether very much pleased and flattered.
He could not be more than twenty-nine or thirty, I thought, and he was
decidedly handsome--that is, his eyes and teeth, and clear brown complexion
were--and there was something distinguished and graceful in his figure
and gesture; and altogether there was the indescribable attraction of
intelligence; and I fancied--though this, of course, was a secret--that
from the moment he spoke to us he felt an interest in me.
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