Those
are my gifts; so let me dress you in them.'
She hesitated with a stimulating hesitation.
'Let me put just one in its place, then?'
Her face grew much warmer.
'I don't think it would be quite the usual or proper course,' she
said, suddenly turning and resuming her operation of plashing in
the miniature cataract.
The stillness of things was disturbed by a bird coming to the
streamlet to drink. After watching him dip his bill, sprinkle
himself, and fly into a tree, Knight replied, with the courteous
brusqueness she so much liked to hear--
'Elfride, now you may as well be fair. You would mind my doing it
but little, I think; so give me leave, do.'
'I will be fair, then,' she said confidingly, and looking him full
in the face. It was a particular pleasure to her to be able to do
a little honesty without fear. 'I should not mind your doing so--
I should like such an attention. My thought was, would it be
right to let you?'
'Then I will!' he rejoined, with that singular earnestness about a
small matter--in the eyes of a ladies' man but a momentary peg for
flirtation or jest--which is only found in deep natures who have
been wholly unused to toying with womankind, and which, from its
unwontedness, is in itself a tribute the most precious that can be
rendered, and homage the most exquisite to be received.
'And you shall,' she whispered, without reserve, and no longer
mistress of the ceremonies.
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