“And then I was gone.  Mr. Ambrose never told me you had come.”

“Why should he?”

“Oh, I don’t know.  I think he might.  You see Billingsfield has been a sort of home to me, and it is a small place; so I thought he might have told me the news.”

“I suppose he thought it would not interest you,” said Mrs. Goddard.  “I am sure I do not know why it should.  But you must be very fond of the place, are you not?”

“Very.  As I was saying, it is very like home to me.  My father lives in town you know—­that is not at all like home.  One always associates the idea of home with the country, and a vicarage and a Hall, and all that.”

“Does one?” said Mrs. Goddard, picking her way over the frozen mud of the road.  “Take care, Nellie, it is dreadfully slippery!”

“How much she has grown,” remarked John, looking at the girl’s active figure as she walked before them.  “She was quite a little girl when I saw her first.”

“Yes, she grows very fast,” answered Mrs. Goddard rather regretfully.

“You say that as though you were sorry.”

“I?  No.  I am glad to see her grow.  What a funny remark.”

“I thought you spoke sadly,” explained John.

“Oh, dear no.  Only she is coming to the awkward age.”

“She is coming to it very gracefully,” said John, who wanted to say something pleasant.

“That is the most any of us can hope to do,” answered Mrs. Goddard with a little smile.  “We all have our awkward age, I suppose.”

“I should not think you could remember yours.”

“Why?  Do you think it was so very long ago?” Mrs. Goddard laughed.

“No—­I cannot believe you ever had any,” said John.

The boyish compliment pleased Mrs. Goddard.  It was long since any one had flattered her, for flattery did not enter into the squire’s system for making himself agreeable.

“Do they teach that sort of thing at Cambridge?” she asked demurely.

“What sort of thing?”

“Making little speeches to ladies,” said she.

“No—­I wish they did,” said John, laughing.  “I should know much better how to make them.  We learn how to write Greek odes to moral abstractions.”

“What a dreadful thing to do!” exclaimed Mrs. Goddard.

“Do you think so?  I do not know.  Now, for instance, I have written a great many Greek odes to you—­”

“To me?” interrupted his companion in surprise.

“Do you think it is so very extraordinary?”

“Very.”

“Well—­you see—­I only saw you once—­you won’t laugh?”

“No,” said Mrs. Goddard, who was very much amused, and was beginning to think that John Short was the most original young man she had ever met.

“I only saw you once, when you came to the vicarage, and I had not the least idea what your name was.  But I—­I hoped you would come back; and so I used to write poems to you.  They were very good, too,” added John in a meditative tone, “I have never written any nearly so good as they were.”