The boarders had organized a fishing party, and everybody had gone,
even Mr. Wylde, so it was very quiet at the farmhouse. Aunt Robbins and
her servants were busy making preserves, and Uncle Robbins was in the
meadow, hauling and stacking the wheat he had cut a few days before.
Pansy had helped to peel apples for the preserves until her back ached
and her hands smarted, so at last Aunt Robbins sent her out to rest.
“I shan’t need you any more to-day, so you had better go and take a nap
in the hammock before that stuck-up Jule Ives comes to turn you out of
it,” said the good woman.
Pansy went out, but she took off her calico dress and gingham apron
first, and donned her prettiest dress, an organdie lawn with a white
ground sprigged with blue flowers. A pretty bow of blue ribbon fastened
the white lace at her throat, and another one tied back the mass
of rippling dark hair from the white temples, leaving just a few
bewitching love locks to curl over the white brow. Thus attired, she
looked exquisitely fair, cool, and charming, and she knew well that
when the boarders returned, tired and hot from the day’s amusements,
they would envy her sweet, comfortable appearance.
She was not disappointed, for by and by, when they came trooping
through the big white gate close by her, every one stopped and stared,
and Miss Ives exclaimed, in a loud, sarcastic voice:
“Good gracious, is it Sunday?”
“Why, no, of course not, Juliette,” said Chattie Norwood. “Why, what
made you think of such a funny thing?”
“Why, Pansy Laurens has on her Sunday dress, that’s all,” with a loud
laugh.
“Oh, pshaw! Her other one is in the washtub,” tittered Miss Norwood,
and every word came distinctly to Pansy’s ears. An angry impulse
prompted her to make some scathing reply, but an innate delicacy
restrained her, and she would not lift her beautiful, drooping lashes
from the book she pretended to be reading, although the angry color
deepened to crimson on her cheeks.
The tittering party passed on toward the house, but, although Pansy
did not look up, she was conscious that one had lingered and stopped.
It was Norman Wylde, and he came up to the hammock, and said gently:
“Poor little Pansy!”
Her sweet lips quivered, and she looked up, meeting the tender,
sympathetic gaze of his splendid dark eyes.
“You are a brave little girl,” he continued warmly. “I was glad that
you proved yourself too much of a lady to reply to their coarse sneers.
Your sweet dignity makes me love you all the more.”
Pansy gave a little start of surprise and rapture. Did he indeed love
her? The color flamed up brightly on her delicate cheeks, and the
lashes drooped bashfully over her eyes.
“Look at me, Pansy,” said the young man, in a tone made up of tender
command and fond entreaty. “You are not surprised. You guessed that I
loved you, didn’t you?”
“No. I was afraid that--that you loved Miss Ives,” she faltered, and a
frown darkened his handsome face.
“Do not speak to me of her,” he said impatiently. “Who could love her
after the meanness and injustice of her conduct to you?” He imprisoned
both her little hands in his, as he continued ardently: “Pansy, do you
love me, my little darling?”
A bashful glance from the sweet blue eyes answered his question, and,
stooping down, he was about to press a kiss on her beautiful lips when
a stealthy footstep came up behind them, and an angry voice exclaimed:
“Really, Mr. Wylde, when you want to flirt with factory girls you
should not choose such a public place, especially when the girl you are
engaged to is close at hand.”
He started backward as if shot, and Pansy sprang from the hammock with
a shriek:
“It is false!”
Juliette Ives laughed scornfully, and replied:
“Ask him. He will not deny it.”
Pretty Pansy, with a face that had grown white as a lily, turned to
Norman Wylde.
“Is it true? Are you engaged to her?” she demanded sharply.
“Yes, but----”
“That is enough!” interrupted Pansy, with flashing eyes. She would
not let him finish his sentence, so keen was her resentment at his
trifling, as she deemed it; and, looking scornfully at him, she said:
“Never presume to speak to me again, sir!”
Then she walked rapidly from the spot, and Norman Wylde and Juliette
Ives stood looking at each other with angry eyes.
“Are you not ashamed of yourself?” she cried indignantly.
“Eavesdropper!” he retorted passionately, forgetting his
gentlemanliness in his resentment at her conduct.
“Traitor!” she retorted defiantly, then burst out fiercely: “Call me
what names you will, I have borne your trifling until I could bear no
more. If you wanted to flirt, why couldn’t you have chosen some one in
your own station in life, instead of that miserable tobacco-factory
girl?”
He had folded his arms across his chest, and was listening with a sneer
to her angry speech. When she paused he answered, in a low yet distinct
voice:
“I beg your pardon. It was not flirting, but earnest.”
A sharp remonstrance sprang to her lips, but, without taking any note
of it, he continued coldly:
“I had a fancy for you once, Juliette, but it perished when I saw how
mean and base you could be to a less fortunate sister woman. I have
watched you and your clique, Juliette, and I have been ashamed of
you all--ashamed and indignant, and my heart turned away from you to
that sweet persecuted girl with a deeper tenderness than it ever felt
before. I made up my mind to snap the bonds that held me as your slave,
and to win her for my own. But I acted prematurely in declaring my love
for her first. You drove me to it with your unwomanly conduct of a
little while ago, else I had not been so hasty.”
She stood staring at him with angry incredulity, wondering if he spoke
the truth, if he really meant to throw her over for the sake of a girl
he had barely known a month.
“What if I refuse to give you your freedom?” she asked harshly.’
“You would not wish to hold an unwilling captive,” he replied, with
a touch of scorn, and she saw that it would be impossible to hold him
without a sacrifice of her pride. Curbing herself a little, she asked
humbly:
“Hadn’t we better take time to think it over, Norman? I admit I was
jealous and a little hasty.”
He looked disappointed and uneasy. Was she really going to hold him to
that bond of which he was so weary, against which he chafed so fiercely?
She caught that look, and comprehended it with bitter mortification.
Anger came to her aid. “Go--you are free as air, and I am well rid of a
fickle flirt,” she exclaimed hotly.
“I thank you, Miss Ives,” he replied, in a tone of relief, and, bowing
coldly, he walked away toward the house, leaving Juliette stamping on
the soft grass in a tempest of fury and disappointment.
He was anxious to find little Pansy and explain his conduct to her.
Surely she would forgive him when she knew that it was for her sake he
had broken faith with Juliette Ives. Of course she would be ready to
make up with him.
And his heart throbbed madly at the thought that sweet Pansy’s love
was all his own. He knew that there would be a bitter battle with his
relatives, but he was determined to make her his wife.