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Who can tell what that cordial of pure, healthful intellectual diversion may have been, even to the burdened father and sick mother at Blackfaulds! To Chrissy the very speaking of it made her clasp her hands over her knee, and her grey eyes to shine out like stars as Bourhope thought to himself.
She was listless and a little peevish, unless when in the company of other yeomen than Bourhope a rare thing with Corrie, who was really a very harmless girl. But she looked elegant in her ball dress, and had always a train of admirers on such occasions. And then, of course, many men needed the spur of jealousy to induce them to take the bold leap of matrimony.
Indeed, Bourhope had a strong suspicion that Corrie retreated to her pillow again after showing him her lovely face lovely even in the pink curl-papers. But Chrissy certainly dressed immediately, and took a morning walk, by which her complexion at least did not profit.
Like great actors, she had an instinctive consciousness of the effect she produced. Bourhope shouted with laughter when the incorrigible Sir Percy, in the disguise of the dairywoman, described his routing charge as "the milky mothers of the herd."
Spottiswoode did not much care for reading aloud, but she took the hint in good part, and called on Chrissy to tell what her book was about, and so divert Bourhope without wholly monopolizing his attention. Chrissy was rather shy at first. She never told stories freely away from home; but she was now pressed to do it.
Spottiswoode, the wife of the chief magistrate, who was likewise banker of Priorton, to her spouse, "your cousin, Bourhope, has asked his billet with us: I must have my sister Corrie in to meet him." Mrs. Spottiswoode was a showy, smart, good-humoured woman, but not over-scrupulous. She was very ready at adapting herself to circumstances, even when the circumstances were against her.
Not being a very strong little woman, her brown face was apt to look jaded and streaky, when Bourhope, resting from the fatigues of his drill, lounged with the girls in the early forenoon in Mrs. Spottiswoode's drawing-room. So it was worth while, he thought, to spur up to Chrissy, and inquire what took her abroad at such an untimely hour.
Bourhope had this in common with Chrissy: he could entertain himself. During the first three days of the week, Bourhope was zealous in looking at, and attaching himself to, Corrie.
He would look about a little longer, enjoy himself a little more. At the word enjoyment Bourhope stopped short, as if he had caught himself tripping. If Chrissy Hunter was ugly, she was an ugly fairy. She was his fate, indeed; he would never see her like again, and he would be a lost and wrecked man without her. The review and the ball were still in store.
He had an independent bearing, as well as an independent portion of the world's goods; he was really a manly fellow in his brown, ruddy, curly, strapping comeliness. But better still, Bourhope was an intelligent fellow, who read other things than the newspapers, and relished them. He was a little conceited, no doubt, in consequence of comparing himself with others, but he had a good heart.
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