of being about to call; and turned away.




PART THE SECOND--SPRING


CHAPTER I: PASSING BY THE SCHOOL


It followed that, as the spring advanced, Dick walked abroad much more
frequently than had hitherto been usual with him, and was continually
finding that his nearest way to or from home lay by the road which
skirted the garden of the school. The first-fruits of his perseverance
were that, on turning the angle on the nineteenth journey by that track,
he saw Miss Fancy's figure, clothed in a dark-gray dress, looking from a
high open window upon the crown of his hat. The friendly greeting
resulting from this rencounter was considered so valuable an elixir that
Dick passed still oftener; and by the time he had almost trodden a little
path under the fence where never a path was before, he was rewarded with
an actual meeting face to face on the open road before her gate. This
brought another meeting, and another, Fancy faintly showing by her
bearing that it was a pleasure to her of some kind to see him there; but
the sort of pleasure she derived, whether exultation at the hope her
exceeding fairness inspired, or the true feeling which was alone Dick's
concern, he could not anyhow decide, although he meditated on her every
little movement for hours after it was made.