"Lips are so like flowers
I might snatch at those
Redder than the rose leaves,
Sweeter than the rose."
"Love is a great master."
"I am reading," says she. "Can't you see that?"
"Read to me, then," says Tommy, scrambling up on the bench beside her
and snuggling himself under her arm. "I love to hear people."
"Well, not this, at all events," says Miss Kavanagh, placing the dainty
copy of "The Muses of Mayfair," she has been reading on the rustic table
in front of her.
"Why not that one? What is it?" asks Tommy, staring at the book.
"Nothing you would like. Horrid stuff. Only poetry."
"What's poetry?"
"Oh, nonsense, Tommy, you know very well what poetry is. Your hymns are
poetry." This she considers will put an end to all desire for the book
in question. It is a clever and skilful move, but it fails signally.
There is silence for a moment while Tommy cogitates, and then----
"Are those hymns?" demands he, pointing at the discarded volume.
"N-o, not exactly." This is scarcely disingenuous, and Miss Kavanagh has
the grace to blush a little. She is the further discomposed in that she
becomes aware presently that Tommy sees through her perfectly.
"Well, what are they?" asks he.
"Oh--er--well--just poetry, you know."
"I don't," says Tommy, flatly, who is nothing if not painfully truthful.
"Let me hear them." He pauses here and regards her with a searching eye.
"They"--with careful forethought--"they aren't lessons, are they?"
"No; they are not lessons," says his aunt, laughing. "But you won't like
them for all that. If you are athirst for literature, get me one of your
own books, and I will read 'Jack the Giant Killer' to you."
"I'm sick of him," says Tommy, most ungratefully. That tremendous hero
having filled up many an idle hour of his during his short lifetime.
"No," nestling closer to her. "Go on with your poetry one!"
"You would hate it. It is worse than 'Jack,'" says she.
"Let me hear it," says Tommy, persistently.
"Well," says Miss Kavanagh, with a sigh, "if you will have it, at least,
don't interrupt." She has tried very hard to get rid of him, but, having
failed in so signal a fashion, she gives herself up with an admirable
resignation to the inevitable.
"What would I do that for?" asks Tommy, rather indignantly.
"I don't know, I'm sure. But I thought I'd warn you," says she, wisely
precautious. "Now, sit down there," pointing to the seat beside her;
"and when you feel you have had enough of it, say so at once."
"That would be interrupting," says Tommy, the Conscientious.
"Well, I give you leave to interrupt so far," says Joyce, glad to leave
him a loop-hole that may insure his departure before Felix comes. "But
no further--mind that."
"Oh, I'm minding!" says Tommy, impatiently. "Go on. Why don't you
begin?"
Miss Kavanagh, taking up her book once more, opens it at random. All its
contents are sweetmeats of the prettiest, so she is not driven to a
choice. She commences to read in a firm, soft voice:--
"The wind and the beam loved the rose,
And the roses loved one:
For who recks the----"
"What's that?" says Tommy.
"What's what?"
"You aren't reading it right, are you?"
"Certainly I am. Why?"
"I don't believe a beam of wood could love anything," says Tommy; "it's
too heavy."
"It doesn't mean a beam of wood."
"Doesn't it?" staring up into her face. "What's it mean, then--'The beam
that is in thine own eye?'"
He is now examining her own eye with great interest. As usual, Tommy is
strong in Bible lore.
"I have no beam in my eye, I hope," says Joyce, laughing; "and, at all
events, it doesn't mean that either. The poet who wrote this meant a
sunbeam."
"Well, why couldn't he say so?" says Tommy, gruffly.
"I really think you had better bring me one of your own books," says
Joyce. "I told you this would----"
"No," obstinately, "I like this. It sounds so nice and smoothly. Go on,"
says Tommy, giving her a nudge.
Joyce, with a sigh, reopens the volume, and gives herself up for lost.
To argue with Tommy is always to know fatigue, and nothing else. One
never gains anything by it.
"Well, do be quiet now, and listen," says she, protesting faintly.
"I'm listening like anything," says Tommy. And, indeed, now at last it
seems as if he were.
So silent does he grow as his aunt reads on that you might have heard a
mouse squeak. But for the low, soft tones of Joyce no smallest sound
breaks the sweet silence of the day. Miss Kavanagh is beginning to feel
distinctly flattered. If one can captivate the flitting fancies of a
child by one's eloquent rendering of charming verse, what may one not
aspire to? There must be something in her style if it can reduce a boy
of seven to such a state of ecstatic attention, considering the subject
is hardly such a one as would suit his tender years.
But Tommy was always thoughtful beyond his age. A dear, clever little
fellow! So appreciative! Far, far beyond the average! He----
The mild sweetness of the spring evening and her own thoughts are broken
in upon at this instant by the "dear, clever little fellow."
"He has just got to your waist now," says he, with an air of wild if
subdued excitement.
"He! Who! What!" shrieks Joyce, springing to her feet. A long
acquaintance with Tommy has taught her to dread the worst.
"Oh, there! Of course you've knocked him down, and I did want to see how
high he would go. I was tickling his tail to make him hurry up," says
Tommy, in an aggrieved tone. "I can't see him anywhere now," peering
about on the ground at her feet.
"Oh! What was it, Tommy? Do speak!" cries Joyce, in a frenzy of fear and
disgust.
"'Twas an earwig!" says Tommy, lifting a seraphic face to hers. "And
such a big one! He was racing up your dress most beautifully, and now
you've upset him. Poor thing--I don't believe he'll ever find his way
back to you again."
"I should hope not, indeed!" says Miss Kavanagh, hastily.
"He began at the very end of your frock," goes on Tommy, still searching
diligently on the ground, as if to find the earwig, with a view to
restoring it to its lost hunting ground; "and it wriggled up so nicely.
I don't know where he is now"--sorrowfully--"unless," with a sudden
brightening of his expressive face, "he is up your petticoats."
"Tommy! What a horrid, bad boy you are!" cries poor Joyce, wildly. She
gives a frantic shake to the petticoats in question. "Find him at once,
sir! He must be somewhere down there. I shan't have an instant's peace
until I know where he is."
"I can't see him anywhere," says Tommy. "Maybe you'll feel him
presently, and then we'll know. He isn't on your leg now, is he?"
"Oh! don't!" cries Joyce, who looks as if she is going, to cry. She
gives herself another vigorous shake, and stands away from the spot
where Tommy evidently thinks the noxious beast in question may be, with
her petticoats held carefully up in both hands. "Oh, Tommy, darling! Do
find him. He can't be up my petticoats, can he?"
"He can. There's, nothing they can't do," says Tommy, who is plainly
revelling in the storm he has raised. Her open fright is beer and
skittles to him. "Why did you stir? He was as good as gold, until then;
and there wasn't anything to be afraid of. I was watching him. When he
got to your ear I'd have told you. I wouldn't like him to make you deaf,
but I wanted to see if he would go to your ear. But you spoiled all my
fun, and now--where is he now?" asks Tommy, with an awful suggestion in
his tone.
"On the grass, perhaps," says Joyce, miserably, looking round her
everywhere, and even on her shoulder. "I don't feel him anywhere."
"Sometimes they stay quite a long time, and then they crawl!" says
Tommy, the most horrible anticipation in his tone.
"Really, Tommy," cries his aunt, indignantly, "I do think you are the
most abominable boy I ever met in my life. There, go away! I certainly
shan't read another line to you--either now--or--ever!"
"What is the matter?" asks a voice at this moment, that sounds close to
her elbow. She turns round with a start.
"It is you, Felix!" says she, coloring warmly. "Oh--oh, it's nothing.
Only Tommy. And he said I had an earwig on me. And I was just a little
unnerved, you know."
"And no wonder," says her lover, with delightful sympathy. "I can't bear
that sort of wild animal myself. Tommy, you ought to be ashamed of
yourself. When you saw him why didn't you rise up and slay the destroyer
of your aunt's peace? There; run away into the hall. You will find on
one of the tables a box of chocolate. I told Mabel it was there; perhaps
she----"
Like an arrow from the bow, Tommy departs.
"He has evidently his doubts of Mabel," says Joyce, laughing rather
nervously. She is still a little shy with Felix. "He doesn't trust her."
"No." He has seated himself and now draws her down beside him. "You were
reading?" he says.
"Yes."
"To Tommy?"
"Yes," laughing more naturally this time.
"Tommy is a more learned person than one would have supposed. Is this
the sort of thing he likes?" pointing to Nydia's exquisite song.
"I am afraid not, though he would insist upon my reading it. The earwig
was evidently far more engrossing as a subject than either the wind or
the rose."
"And yet--" he has his arm round her now, and is reading the poem over
her shoulder.
"You are my Rose," says he, softly. "And you--do you love but one?"
She makes a little mute gesture that might signify anything or nothing
to the uninitiated, but to him is instinct with a most happy meaning.
"Am I that one, darling?"
She makes the same little silent movement again, but this time she adds
to it by casting a swift glance upward at him from under her lowered
lids.
"Make me sure of it," entreated he almost in a whisper. He leans over
her, lower, lower still. With a little tremulous laugh, dangerously akin
to tears, she raises her soft palm to his cheek and tries to press
him--from her. But he holds her fast.
"Make me sure!" he says again. There is a last faint hesitation on her
part, and then--their lips meet.
"I have doubted always--always a little--ever since that night down by
the river," says he, "but now----"
"Oh, no! You must not doubt me again!" says she with tears in her eyes.
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's April's Lady, by Margaret Wolfe Hungerford