And so he bundled his charges out again into the main street of the village; and somehow it happened that Mabyn addressed a timid remark to Mrs. Trelyon, and that Mrs. Trelyon, in answering it, stopped for a moment; so that Master Harry was sent to Wenna’s side, and these two led the way down the wide thoroughfare.  There were few people visible in the old-fashioned place:  here and there an aged crone came out to the door of one of the rude stone cottages to look at the strangers.  Overhead the sky was veiled over with a thin fleece of white cloud, but the light was intense for all that, and indeed the colors of the objects around seemed all the more clear and marked.

“Well, Miss Wenna,” said the young man gayly, “how long are we to remain good friends?  What is the next fault you will have to find with me?  Or have you discovered something wrong already?”

“Oh no,” she said with a quiet smile, “I am very good friends with you this morning.  You have pleased your mother very much by bringing her for this drive.”

“Oh, nonsense!” he said.  “She might have as many drives as she chose; but presently you’ll find a lot of those parsons back at the house, and she’ll take to her white gowns again, and the playing of the organ all the day long, and all that sham stuff.  I tell you what it is:  she never seems alive, she never seems to take any interest in anything, unless you’re with her.  Now, you will see how the novelty of this luncheon-party in an inn will amuse her; but do you think she would care for it if she and I were here alone?”

“Perhaps you never tried?” Miss Wenna said gently.

“Perhaps I knew she wouldn’t come.  However, don’t let’s have a fight, Wenna:  I mean to be very civil to you to-day—­I do, really.”

“I am so much obliged to you,” she said meekly.  “But pray don’t give yourself unnecessary trouble.”

“Oh,” said he, “I’d always be civil to you if you would treat me decently.  But you say far more rude things than I do—­in that soft way, you know, that looks as if it were all silk and honey.  I do think you’ve awfully little consideration for human failings.  If one goes wrong in the least thing, even in one’s spelling, you say something that sounds as pleasant as possible, and all the same it transfixes one just as you stick a pin through a beetle.  You are very hard, you are—­mean with those who would like to be friends with you.  When it’s mere strangers and cottagers and people of that sort, who don’t care a brass farthing about you, then I believe you’re all gentleness and kindness; but to your real friends the edge of a saw is smooth compared to you.”

“Am I so very harsh to my friends?” the young lady said in a resigned way.

“Oh, well,” he said, with some compunction, “I don’t quite say that, but you could be much more pleasant if you liked, and a little more charitable to their faults.  You know there are some who would give a great deal to win your approval; and perhaps when you find fault they are so disappointed that they think your words are sharper than you mean; and sometimes they think you might give them credit for trying to please you, at least.”