Of all the dinners, this was the most pleasant; he was more gentle and affectionate, and she made him tell her about the Persian poets, and promise to show her some specimens of the Rose Garden of Saadi--she had never before been so near having his pursuits opened to her.
‘What a favourite Gilbert is!’ Lucy said to Sophia, as Albinia lighted a candle and went up to his room.
‘He makes such a fuss,’ said Sophy. ‘What is there in being wet through to cry about?’
Albinia heard a little shuffle as she opened the door, and Gilbert pushed a book under his pillow. She asked him what he had been reading. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘he had not been doing it long, for the flickering of the candle hurt his eyes.’
‘Yes, you had better not,’ said Albinia, moving the flaring light to a less draughty part of the dingy whitewashed attic. ‘Or shall I read to you?’
‘Are you come to stay with me?’ cried the boy, raising himself up to look after her, as she moved about the room and stood looking from the window over the trees at the water meadows, now flooded into a lake, and lighted by the beams of a young moon.
‘I can stay till your father is ready for tea,’ said Albinia, coming nearer. ‘Let me see whether your hands are hot.’
She found her own hand suddenly clasped, and pressed to his lips, and then, as if ashamed, he turned his face away; nor would she betray her pleasure in it, but merely said, ‘Shall I go on with your book!’
‘No,’ said he, wearily turning his reddened cheek to the other side. ‘I only took it because it is so horrid lying here thinking.’
‘I am very sorry to hear it. Do you know, Gibbie, that it is said there is nothing more lamentable than for a man not to like to have his own thoughts for his company,’ said she, gaily.
‘Ah! but--!’ said Gilbert. ‘If I lie here alone, I’m always looking out there,’ and he pointed to the opposite recess. She looked, but saw nothing. ‘Don’t you know?’ he said.
He grasped her hands in both his own. ‘Aye! Ned used to sleep there. I always look for him there.’
‘Do you mean that you would rather have another room? I would manage it directly.’
‘O no, thank you, I like it for some things. Take the candle--look by the shutter--cut out in the wood.’
The boys’ scoring of ‘E. & G. K.,’ was visible there.