She paused, her hand on the latch,—­and for a moment Walden hesitated.  A wave of colour swept up to his brows,—­he was conscious of a struggling desire to refuse her request, united to a still more earnest craving to grant it.  She looked at him, wistfully smiling.

“May I come in?” she repeated.

He advanced, and opened the gate, standing aside for her to pass.

“Of course you may!”—­he said gently,—­“And welcome!”

XIV

Now it happened that Bainton was at that moment engaged in training some long branches of honey-suckle across the rectory walls, and being half-way up a ladder for the purpose, the surprise he experienced at seeing ‘Passon’ and Miss Vancourt enter the garden together and walk slowly side by side across the lawn, was so excessive, that in jerking his head round to convince himself that it was not a vision but a reality, he nearly lost his balance.

“Woa, steady!” he muttered, addressing the ladder which for a second swayed beneath him—­“Woa, I sez!  This ain’t no billowy ocean with wot they calls an underground swell!  So the ice ’ave broke, ’ave it!  She, wot don’t like clergymen, an’ he, wot don’t like ladies, ’as both come to saunterin’ peaceful like with one another over the blessed green grass all on a fine May mornin’!  Which it’s gettin’ nigh on June now an’ no sign o’ the weather losin’ temper.  Well, well!  Wonders won’t never cease it’s true, but I’d as soon a’ thought o’ my old ‘ooman dancin’ a ’ornpipe among her cream cheeses as that Passon Walden would a’ let Miss Vancourt inside this ’ere gate so easy like, an’ he a bacheldor.  But there!—­arter all, he’s gettin’ on in years, an’ she’s ever so much younger than he is, an’ I dessay he’s made up his mind to treat ’er kind like, as ’twere her father, which he should do, bein’ spiritooal ‘ead o’ the village, an’ as for the pretty face of ’er, he’s not the man to look at it more’n once, an’ then he couldn’t tell you wot it’s like.  He favours his water-lilies mor’n females,—­ah, an’ I bet he’d give ten pound for a new specimen of a flower when he wouldn’t lay out a ’apenny on a new specimen of a woman.”  Here, pausing in his reflections, he again looked cautiously round from his high vantage point of view on the ladder, and saw Walden break off a spray of white lilac from one bush of a very special kind near the edge of the lawn, and give it to Miss Vancourt.  “Well, now that do beat me altogether!” he ejaculated under his breath.  “If he’s told me once, he’s told me a ’undred times that he won’t ’ave no blossoms broke off that bush on no account An’ there he is a-pickin’ of it hisself!  That’s a kind of thing which do make me feel that men is a poor feeble-minded lot,—­ it do reely now!”

But feeble-minded or not, John had nevertheless gathered the choice flower, and moreover, had found a certain pleasure in giving it to his fair companion, who inhaled its delicious odour with an appreciative smile.