Lucy laid her right hand on the pommel and resigned her left foot; Mr.
Talboys put his hand under that foot and heaved her smoothly into the
saddle. "That is clever," thought simple David; "that chap has got
more pith in his arm than one would think." They cantered away, and
left him looking sadly after them. It seemed so hard that another man
should have her sweet foot in his hand, should lift her whole glorious
person, and smooth her sacred dress, and he stand by helpless; and
then the indifference with which that man had done it all. To him it
had been no sacred pleasure, no great privilege. A sense of loneliness
struck chill on David as the clatter of her pony's hoofs died away. He
was in the house; but in that house was a sort of inner circle, of
which she was the center, and he was to be outside it altogether.
Liable to great wrath upon great occasions, he had little of that
small irritability that goes with an egotistical mind and feminine
fiber, so he merely hung his head, blamed nobody, and was sad in a
manly way. While he leaned against the portico in this dejected mood,
a little hand pulled his coat-tail. It was Master Reginald, who looked
up in his face, and said timidly, "Will you play with me?" The fact
is, Mr. Reginald's natural audacity had received a momentary check. He
had just put this same question to Mr. Hardie in the library, and had
been rejected with ignominy, and recommended to go out of doors for
his own health and the comfort of such as desired peaceable study of
British and foreign intelligence.
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