“Certainly, I have been abroad, but afar from
myself—never. It is an old saying,—all
old sayings are true; most new sayings are false,—a
man carries his native soil at the sole of his foot.”
Here the path somewhat narrowed. Mrs. Cameron
went on first, Kenelm and Lily behind; she, of course,
on the dry path, he on the dewy grass.
She stopped him. “You are walking in the
wet, and with those thin shoes.” Lily
moved instinctively away from the dry path.
Homely though that speech of Lily’s be, and
absurd as said by a fragile girl to a gladiator like
Kenelm, it lit up a whole world of womanhood:
it showed all that undiscoverable land which was hidden
to the learned Mr. Emlyn, all that land which an uncomprehended
girl seizes and reigns over when she becomes wife
and mother.
At that homely speech, and that impulsive movement,
Kenelm halted, in a sort of dreaming maze. He
turned timidly, “Can you forgive me for my rude
words? I presumed to find fault with you.”
“And so justly. I have been thinking over
all you said, and I feel you were so right; only I
still do not quite understand what you meant by the
quality for mortals which the fairy did not give to
her changeling.”
“If I did not dare say it before, I should still
less dare to say it now.”
“Do.” There was no longer the stamp
of the foot, no longer the flash from her eyes, no
longer the wilfulness which said, “I insist;”—”
Do;” soothingly, sweetly, imploringly.
Thus pushed to it, Kenelm plucked up courage, and
not trusting himself to look at Lily, answered brusquely,—
“The quality desirable for men, but more essential
to women in proportion as they are fairy-like, though
the tritest thing possible, is good temper.”
Lily made a sudden bound from his side, and joined
her aunt, walking through the wet grass.
When they reached the garden-gate, Kenelm advanced
and opened it. Lily passed him by haughtily;
they gained the cottage-door.
“I don’t ask you in at this hour,”
said Mrs. Cameron. “It would be but a
false compliment.”
Kenelm bowed and retreated. Lily left her aunt’s
side, and came towards him, extending her hand.
“I shall consider your words, Mr. Chillingly,”
she said, with a strangely majestic air. “At
present I think you are not right. I am not
ill-tempered; but—” here she paused,
and then added with a loftiness of mien which, had
she not been so exquisitely pretty, would have been
rudeness—“in any case I forgive you.”
