"After the great service you have rendered, and so bravely too, I hope you do not deem me uncourteous in not inviting you to rest for a few minutes; but--but----"
"Papa might frown, and mamma have some fears of a light dragoon," said I, laughing. "Is it not so?"
"My papa!" she replied in a voice that was extremely touching. "Sir, of course you cannot know; but he is dead, and my dear mamma has lain by his side these seven years."
"Pardon me," said I, "if by a heedless speech I have probed a hidden wound--a sorrow so deep. But your friends, perhaps, might wish to discover the sturdy beggar from whom I saved you, and if I can be of any service, by sending a note to Maidstone barracks, addressed----"
At that moment the door of the cottage opened, and a comely old woman, dressed in good matronly taste, appeared with a lighted candle in her hand, and with an expression of alarm in her good-humoured face, as she exclaimed--
"La, miss! how late you are! I was quite alarmed for fear you had returned, as you often do, by the sea-shore, and met with an accident among the rocks."
"No, my dear friend, I am here in safety, thanks to this kind gentleman; but for whose fortunate intervention I might have had a very different thing to say."
And in a few words she related all that had taken place, caressing my horse the while kindly and gracefully with her pretty hands, and even without fear, kissing his nose, for although sad-eyed, the girl seemed naturally playful.
The woman she addressed had all the appearance of a matronly servant or elderly nurse; she took the young lady in her arms kindly, kissed her, and thanked me very earnestly for my service. She then proposed that I should enter the cottage, and have at least a glass of cowslip or elder-flower wine, or some such distillation; but the girl looked rather alarmed. She did not second the invitation, and, finding that I was becoming _de trop_, I put my foot in the stirrup, and mounted.
"Do not deem us lacking either in courtesy or gratitude, sir," said she, presenting her hand, and looking up with her sad, earnest eyes, which were now full of tears; "but you do not know the--the peculiarity of my position here."
"She is, perhaps, a governess--some useful young person, some victim of a stepmother," thought I.