He would never have believed that Norah was really far the better looking of the two sisters, with lovely features, graceful figure, and perfect colouring, which left nothing for the imagination of a lover to idealise, while Elizabeth’s charm must always be, to a certain extent, in the eye of the beholder.
However, old Sam Petch, in his little shanty at the fag-end of the village, gave a description of his friend Elizabeth, which was perhaps correct, though not refined. “She’s just a niceish-looking lass,” he said; “no beauty, though.” Then he paused, pulled at his pipe, and winked at Andy, who was his visitor. “Bud, howivver,” he added, “she’s a cuddlesome one, she is.”
Andy had replied with cold dignity at the time, but he thought of it now, as he walked near Elizabeth—he thought of it to the exclusion of all the brilliant things he meant to have said to Her.
“Here we are,” said he, opening the gate of young Sam Petch’s garden.
“Oh yes, here we are,” echoed Elizabeth, who really was rather an intelligent talker as a rule.
But the ‘we’ she echoed was the second step—the enchanted muddle was that glorious much nearer—and they could find no words in face of such a view.
“How-do-you-do, Mrs. Petch?” said Elizabeth at last; then she glanced round for the next remark, quite forgetting what she had come for.
“And how are your legs to-day, Mrs. Petch?” said Andy, hiding his emotions under an expression of overdone sympathy. Then he felt a lady’s legs were perhaps not subjects to mention before Elizabeth, and added with incoherent haste, “But, of course, it’s heads the heat affects. Sunstroke. Most dangerous thing!”
Mrs. Petch glanced at the poor ostrich trying to stick his head in the sand.
“My uncle had sunstroke,” she said, helping to bury his wriggling extremities with a sort of tolerant contempt.