When she was specially interested in anything that one was saying, she
would lean forwards, with a deep, reflective look in her clear grey
eyes, in rapt attention, resting her little dimpled chin on her bent
hand:--when she disagreed with something you said, she would make such a
pretty quaint moue, tossing her head defiantly, and raise her curving
eyebrows in astonishment that you should dare to differ from her.
She seldom laughed--I hate to hear girls continually giggling and
guffawing at the merest nothings so long as they proceed from male lips!
When Min laughed, her laughter was just like the rippling of silvery
music and of the most catching, contagious nature. She generally only
smiled, at even the most humorous incidents; and her smile was the
sweetest I ever saw in anyone. It lit up her whole face with merriment,
giving the grey eyes the most bewitching expression, and bringing into
prominent notice a tiny, dear little dimple in her chin, which you might
not have previously observed.
Her smile it was that completed my captivation, that first time that I
saw her in church and lost my heart in a moment:--her smile was ever and
always her greatest charm.
Of course I remember all her little darling ways and coquetries.
Love is a great master of the art of mnemonics, and might be quoted by
Mr Stokes as one of the greatest "aids to memory" that is known.
Trifling trivialities, by others passed by unobserved, are graphically
jotted down with indelible ink in his cordal note-book--
"For indeed I know
Of no more subtle master under heaven,
Than is the maiden passion for a maid."
When no other people came in, Min would always, on the evening of my
visit, make a rule of turning out her workbox, and arranging its
contents over again--"in order," as she told me, although I had thought
it the picture of neatness and tidiness in its original state.
She was in the habit on these occasions of restoring to her mother
sundry little articles which she confessed to having purloined during
the week. I recollect how there used to be a regular little joke at her
expense on the subject of kleptomania.
How well I remember that little workbox, and its arrangements! I could
tell you, now, every item of its varied contents,--the perfumed sachet,
the ugly little pincushion which she had had since dollhood, the little
scraps from her favourite poets, which she had copied out and kept in
this sacred repository, never revealing them save to sympathising eyes.
How angry she was with me once, for not thinking, with her, that
Longfellow's "Psalm of Life" was the "nicest" thing ever written:--what
a long time it was afterwards before she would again allow me to inspect
her secret treasures and pet things, as she had previously permitted me
to do!
This all used to go on while her mother was playing; and then, when the
workbox was arranged in apple-pie order, Min herself would go to the
piano and sing my favourite ballads, I listening to her from the
opposite corner of the room, for she hated having her music turned over
by any one.
In addition to these rare opportunities of studying my darling and
feeding my love for her, I used to see her at church every Sunday.
From her window, also, when dog Catch and I took our walks abroad, I
often had a bright smile from "somebody," who happened always to be
tending her cherished plants just at the moment when I passed by.
Sometimes, too, I met her at Miss Pimpernell's, or out walking:--thus,
in a short time, I learnt to know all her little plans and wishes, and
her sentiments about everything.
Her likes and dislikes were my own. It was a strange coincidence, that
if Min should express some opinion one day, I found, when we next met,
that I seemed to have involuntarily come round to her view; while, if I
let fall any casual remark, Min was certain, on some future occasion, to
repeat it as if it were her own.
I suppose the coincidence was owing to our mental "rapport," as the
French express it.
The only drawback to my happiness, was Mr Mawley, whom I disliked now
more than ever.
Although he had all the rest of the week in which to pay his devoirs,
having carte blanche from Mrs Clyde to run in and out of her house
whenever he so pleased--he took it into his head to drop in regularly on
the very evening that I had selected and thought especially mine. I
believe he only did it to spite me, being of a most aggravating
temperament!
When he was there, too, he was constantly endeavouring to make me appear
ridiculous.
As certainly as I said anything, or advanced an opinion, he, as
certainly, contradicted me, taking the opposite side of the question.
This, of course, made me angry and unamiable. He was so obstinately
obtuse, too, that he would not take a hint. He must have seen that his
company was not wanted, by me at least, and that I did not desire any
conversation with him. I've no doubt of his doing it on purpose!
He prided himself on his eminently practical mind, being incapable of
seeing romance even in the works of nature and nature's God; and he was
continually cutting jokes at my "sentimentality," as he was pleased to
style my more poetical views of life and its surroundings.
Whenever I gave him the chance, he was safe to slide in some of his
vulgar bathos after any heroic sentiment or personal opinion I may have
uttered. This, naturally, would rouse my temper, never very pacific;
and made me so cross, that I was often on the verge of quarrelling with
Min on his account!
The worst of it was, also, that he was always so confoundedly cool and
collected, that he generally came out of these encounters in the
character of an injured martyr or inoffensive person, who had to bear
the unprovoked assaults of my bearish brusquerie--making me, as a matter
of course, appear in a very unfavourable light.
I remember, one day in particular, when he was so exceedingly irritating
to me, that he goaded me on into addressing him quite rudely.
Min was very much distressed at my behaviour, remonstrating with me for
it; and this did not of course make me feel more kindly-disposed towards
the curate, who had now become my perfect antipathy.
We had been down to the church--Miss Pimpernell, the Dasher girls, Min,
and myself,--to hear the organist make trial of a new stop which had
been lately added to his instrument. Listening to the small sacred
concert that thereupon ensued, we had remained until quite late in the
evening; and, on our way home through the churchyard, as we loitered
along, looking at the graves, and trying to decipher by the slowly
waning light the half illegible inscriptions on the headstones, we came
across Mr Mawley.
Min and I were walking in front, talking seriously and reflectively, as
befitted the time and place.