Millicent and Another - Page 2

arrived at the gate she came out of the farm-house
burdened with a basket of things in one hand and a can of milk in the
other. She graciously allowed me to relieve her of both, and taking
basket and can with one hand I gave her the other, and so, hand in
hand, very friendly, we set off down the long, bleak, windy road just
when it was growing dark.

"I'm afraid you are rather thinly clad for this bleak December
evening," I remarked. "Your little hand feels cold as ice."

She smiled sweetly and said she was not feeling cold, after which there
was a long interval of silence. From time to time we met a villager, a
fisherman in his ponderous sea-boots, or a farm-labourer homeward
plodding his weary way. But though heavy-footed after his day's labour
he is never so stolid as an English ploughman is apt to be; invariably
when giving us a good-night in passing the man would smile and look at
Millicent very directly with a meaning twinkle in his Cornish eye. He
might have been congratulating her on having a male companion to pay
her all these nice little attentions, and perhaps signalling the hope
that something would come of it.

Grave little Millicent, I was pleased to observe, took no notice of
this Cornubian foolishness. At length when we had walked half the
distance home, in perfect silence, she said impressively: "Mr. Hudson,
I have something I want to tell you very much."

I begged her to speak, pressing her cold little hand.

She proceeded: "I shall never forget that morning when you went away
the last time. You said you were going to Truro; but I'm not sure--
perhaps it was to London. I only know that it was very far away, and
you were going for a very long time. It was early in the morning, and I
was in bed. You know how late I always am. I heard you calling to me to
come down and say good-bye; so I jumped up and came down in my
nightdress and saw you standing waiting for me at the foot of the
stairs. Then, when I got down, you took me up in your arms and kissed
me. I shall never forget it!"

"Why?" I said, rather lamely, just because it was necessary to say
something. And after a little pause, she returned, "Because I shall
never forget it."

Then, as I said nothing, she resumed: "That day after school I saw
Uncle Charlie and told him, and he said: 'What! you allowed that tramp
to kiss you! then I don't want to take you on my knee any more--you've
lowered yourself too much."

"Did he dare to say that?" I returned.

"Yes, that's what Uncle Charlie said, but it makes no difference. I
told him you were not a tramp, Mr. Hudson, and he said you could call
yourself Mister-what-you-liked