She seemed young, but he never thought of her age.  In reality she was nine-and-twenty years old but looked younger.  She was pale, far paler than the little girl, but she had those same violet eyes, large, deep and sorrowful, beneath dark, smooth eyebrows that arched high and rose a little in the middle.  Her mouth was perhaps large for her face but her full lips curved gently and seemed able to smile, though she was not smiling.  Her nose was perhaps too small—­her face was far from faultless—­and it had the slightest tendency to turn up instead of down, but it was so delicately modelled that an artist would have pardoned it that deviation from the classic.  Thick brown hair waved across her white forehead and was hidden under the black bonnet and the veil thrown back over it.  She was dressed in black and the close-fitting gown showed off with unconscious vanity the lines of a perfectly moulded and perfectly supple figure.  But it was especially her eyes which attracted John’s sudden attention at that first glance, her violet eyes, tender, sad, almost pathetic, seeming to ask sympathy and marvellously able to command it.

It was but for a moment that she paused.  Then came the vicar, following her from the drawing-room, and all three went on.  Presently Short heard the front door open and Mr. Ambrose shouted to the fly.

“Muggins!  Muggins!”

No one had ever been able to say why Abraham Boosey, the publican, had christened his henchman with an appellation so vulgar, to say the least of it—­so amazingly cacophonous.  The man’s real name was plain Charles Bird; but Abraham Boosey had christened him Muggins and Muggins he remained.  Muggins had had some beer and was asleep, for the afternoon was hot and he had anticipated his “fours.”

Short saw his opportunity and darted out of the study to the hall where the lady and her little girl were waiting while the vicar tried to rouse the driver of the fly by shouting at him.  John blushed again as he passed close to the woman with the sad eyes; he could not tell why, but the blood mounted to the very roots of his hair, and for a moment he felt very foolish.

“I’ll wake him up, Mr. Ambrose,” he said, running out hatless into the summer’s sun.

“Wake up, you lazy beggar!” he shouted in the ear of the sleeping Muggins, shaking him violently by the arm as he stood upon the wheel.  Muggins grunted something and smiled rather idiotically.  “It was only the young gentleman’s play,” he would have said.  Bless you! he did not mind being shaken and screamed at!  He slowly turned his horses and brought the fly up to the door.  John walked back and stood waiting.

“Thank you,” said the lady in a voice that made his heart jump, as she came out from under the porch and the vicar helped her to get in.  Then it was the turn of the little girl.

“Good-bye, my dear,” said the vicar kindly as he took her hand.

“Good-bye,” said the child.  Then she hesitated and looked at John, who was standing beside the clergyman.  “Good-bye,” she repeated, holding out her little hand shyly towards him.  John took it and grew redder than ever as he felt that the lady was watching him.  Then the little girl blushed and laughed in her small embarrassment, and climbed into the carriage.